- Joined
- Aug 8, 1999
- Messages
- 5,094
I picked up a Paramillitary and so far so good. I really like the thick G-10 scales. 
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Para Millie vertical blade play?
- Thread starter storyville
- Start date
- Joined
- May 16, 2002
- Messages
- 4,437
the Al Mar SERE 2000...G-10, solid lockup, strudy blade.
Don't get me wrong, I like spydies, still carry my old endura in the EDC rotation, but this SERE is a tank.
It has also been criticised for having a short blade for its mass, but 3.5" is good fer me.
Keith
Don't get me wrong, I like spydies, still carry my old endura in the EDC rotation, but this SERE is a tank.
It has also been criticised for having a short blade for its mass, but 3.5" is good fer me.
Keith
- Joined
- Aug 11, 1999
- Messages
- 1,111
Ooops -- sorry for not replying sooner -- was out of town in Eugene for the past week. (Beautiful town, btw, for anyone who lives there.) The opening action has smoothed out considerably, but the blade play is still there. As Boxer93 notes, the blade tang does indeed ramp up and, in principle, the compression lock bar should simply move over till it nestles tightly between the tang and the stop pin. Gently forcing the lock bar over doesn't help, either. At this point, I really don't know where the slight give is coming from. Will give Spyderco a call and see if I can swap for one with a more solid lock-up.
Again, the Para Millie is a great design; just about ideal in a working folder. Anyone interested in one should definitely get on a waitlist -- it's worth it. Just ask the dealer/ seller to check the blade action before shipping it out. I trust Sal and co. will work these issues out in good time. Spyderco has proven itself again and again as the best production company out there, from design and production to customer service and responsiveness to ELU feedback. How many companies actually care about what the end-user has to say (esp. the small fraction of the consumer public that we represent), then work it back into their products? Spyderco pushes the design envelope on our behalf and -- to a more significant degree than most other companies -- with our input and in response to our feedback. I don't think we should be overly concerned when minor, fixable problems arise from time to time, during the "early rounds" of creative, innovative designs we've demanded all along.
Glen
Again, the Para Millie is a great design; just about ideal in a working folder. Anyone interested in one should definitely get on a waitlist -- it's worth it. Just ask the dealer/ seller to check the blade action before shipping it out. I trust Sal and co. will work these issues out in good time. Spyderco has proven itself again and again as the best production company out there, from design and production to customer service and responsiveness to ELU feedback. How many companies actually care about what the end-user has to say (esp. the small fraction of the consumer public that we represent), then work it back into their products? Spyderco pushes the design envelope on our behalf and -- to a more significant degree than most other companies -- with our input and in response to our feedback. I don't think we should be overly concerned when minor, fixable problems arise from time to time, during the "early rounds" of creative, innovative designs we've demanded all along.
Glen
- Joined
- Aug 11, 1999
- Messages
- 1,111
Oh well, I sent off my Para-Mil via USPS Priority on June 2 and it reached Golden, CO on June 4. Just got it back yesterday.
All Spyderco did (could do?), apparently, was tighten the pivot. Based on what others had noted, I tried this before sending it in and knew it would get rid of the vertical blade play; but it would also stiffen the action to a point where it would be very difficult to open/ close. I asked a customer rep by phone on June 1 if it was possible to eliminate the blade play AND still have smooth opening/ closing action, and he said to send it in.
3-1/2 weeks later, I got my PM back with no blade play, but very stiff action. I loosened it just to the point where the blade moves smoothly -- but, of course, the slight vertical play returned. Essentially, I got the knife back in the same condition, with the same problem, as when I sent it in.
Nice knife, still; but this kinda dampens my appreciation for it a little. Hope Spyderco irons out the QC on the Para-Mil; it's a great design that deserves the best possible execution in production.
Glen
All Spyderco did (could do?), apparently, was tighten the pivot. Based on what others had noted, I tried this before sending it in and knew it would get rid of the vertical blade play; but it would also stiffen the action to a point where it would be very difficult to open/ close. I asked a customer rep by phone on June 1 if it was possible to eliminate the blade play AND still have smooth opening/ closing action, and he said to send it in.
3-1/2 weeks later, I got my PM back with no blade play, but very stiff action. I loosened it just to the point where the blade moves smoothly -- but, of course, the slight vertical play returned. Essentially, I got the knife back in the same condition, with the same problem, as when I sent it in.
Nice knife, still; but this kinda dampens my appreciation for it a little. Hope Spyderco irons out the QC on the Para-Mil; it's a great design that deserves the best possible execution in production.
Glen
It would be interesting if Sal would chime in on this topic, but here's my theory:
The blade play in the compression lock models such as the Paramilitary seems to be related to manufacturing tolerances not being quite tight enough. In order for the compression lock to work reliably, everything has to be manufactured and assembled very precisely. When something is just a little bit off -- maybe the blade is ground just a hair too thin, or maybe the G10 handle in the pivot area is just a teeny bit too thick, etc -- there seems to be a side effect of blade play being present when the pivot tension is adjusted to the desired "smoothness" level where the knife is just "loose" enough to flick open and closed with minor wrist action. If you tighten the pivot down to the point where the open/close action is rather stiff, the blade play of course goes away.
It seems that maybe a possible solution to this problem might be for Spyderco to use slightly thicker washers between the pivot area and the handle scales. In my experience, the washers on the Para and ATR are extremely thin wafers of some kind of nylon or mylar type material. There is almost nothing to them. When the manufacturing tolerances of the knife are perfect, these washers work just fine and give the knife a nice smooth action and zero blade play -- but when something is just the slightest bit out of whack, the ultra thin washers just don't provide any room for adjustment.
I had a similar blade play problem with my ATR. I simply could not get it adjusted to the point where it had a smooth, free action and no blade play no matter what I tried. Since I had not used the knife at all yet, the people at the Spyderco Factory Outlet were nice enough to let me exchange it for another one that had no blade play, so my story had a very happy ending, but I still think that a slightly modified washer design that allows more room for adjustment of pivot tension might be the answer...
Just my $.02
The blade play in the compression lock models such as the Paramilitary seems to be related to manufacturing tolerances not being quite tight enough. In order for the compression lock to work reliably, everything has to be manufactured and assembled very precisely. When something is just a little bit off -- maybe the blade is ground just a hair too thin, or maybe the G10 handle in the pivot area is just a teeny bit too thick, etc -- there seems to be a side effect of blade play being present when the pivot tension is adjusted to the desired "smoothness" level where the knife is just "loose" enough to flick open and closed with minor wrist action. If you tighten the pivot down to the point where the open/close action is rather stiff, the blade play of course goes away.
It seems that maybe a possible solution to this problem might be for Spyderco to use slightly thicker washers between the pivot area and the handle scales. In my experience, the washers on the Para and ATR are extremely thin wafers of some kind of nylon or mylar type material. There is almost nothing to them. When the manufacturing tolerances of the knife are perfect, these washers work just fine and give the knife a nice smooth action and zero blade play -- but when something is just the slightest bit out of whack, the ultra thin washers just don't provide any room for adjustment.
I had a similar blade play problem with my ATR. I simply could not get it adjusted to the point where it had a smooth, free action and no blade play no matter what I tried. Since I had not used the knife at all yet, the people at the Spyderco Factory Outlet were nice enough to let me exchange it for another one that had no blade play, so my story had a very happy ending, but I still think that a slightly modified washer design that allows more room for adjustment of pivot tension might be the answer...
Just my $.02
- Joined
- Aug 11, 1999
- Messages
- 1,111
Timlara and DaveH,
I think you're both right. I doubt the compression lock requires higher tolerances than any other lock system -- Spyderco turns out top-notch liner locks, which the compression lock should eventually eclipse -- but my Para-Mil at least does not quite equal the QC I've found in my other Spydies. Slightly thicker washers just might do the trick.
Anyhow, still, the PM is hard not to love --
Glen
I think you're both right. I doubt the compression lock requires higher tolerances than any other lock system -- Spyderco turns out top-notch liner locks, which the compression lock should eventually eclipse -- but my Para-Mil at least does not quite equal the QC I've found in my other Spydies. Slightly thicker washers just might do the trick.
Anyhow, still, the PM is hard not to love --
Glen
I agree with DaveH -- I would really like to see Spyderco do a "sebenza-like" bushing system on their high end models if I had my choice.
I just thought that it might be interesting to see if beefing up the washers a little bit might make a difference, as it doesn't seem like experimenting with this would involve quite as much design work...
I just thought that it might be interesting to see if beefing up the washers a little bit might make a difference, as it doesn't seem like experimenting with this would involve quite as much design work...
I now got mine and the blade has no play and openes smooth. My Para is from a newer production run I think (my dealer didn't have it in stock when I placed my order two weeks ago), so maybe the newer ones are ok.
How bad is the blade play by the way? Is it visible or can you just feel it when pressing the blade on a hard surface? I pressed mine pretty hard on the table, not the slightest movement. Every Paramilitary should lock up like this, and if not, Spyderco should fix it. And if they can't fix it, they sould replace it.
Good luck to all those unfortunate Para-owners.
How bad is the blade play by the way? Is it visible or can you just feel it when pressing the blade on a hard surface? I pressed mine pretty hard on the table, not the slightest movement. Every Paramilitary should lock up like this, and if not, Spyderco should fix it. And if they can't fix it, they sould replace it.
Good luck to all those unfortunate Para-owners.
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2002
- Messages
- 491
In playing with my Paramille, I discovered that you can loosen the blade piviot until the action is the way you like it. If there is some blade play, I got rid of it by tightening the handle screws nearest to the compression lock. One side seems to be Loc-Tited, but the other allowed adjustment. Now she closes one-handed (just like that ATR video-BTW, Thanks for that), but there is absolutely no blade play. YMMV
- Joined
- May 23, 2004
- Messages
- 1,175
Received a new Paramilli today, no blade play at all. Feels a little stiff to open and close, but this should loosen up with time.
Overall first impression, solid knife, very sharp out of the box and a nice grippy texture to the G10 scales. If it loosens up a touch for one handed open and close, like my BM's, it will be a very nice addition to my EDC's.
Overall first impression, solid knife, very sharp out of the box and a nice grippy texture to the G10 scales. If it loosens up a touch for one handed open and close, like my BM's, it will be a very nice addition to my EDC's.
I've had my paramilitary for almost two weeks now. It has been my EDC since it arrived from newgraham.com. Absolutely no blade-play exists at all in mine. Lock-up is rock solid and there is no side-to-side or vertical movement at all. I have noticed a very slight grittiness occasionally, as others have described above, but it did not exist out of the box. I contribute it to dust/dirt picked up during carry or use, and I have used it to open a couple of bags of QuikSet mortar and tile grout, so I may have gotten some mortar/grout dust in it. It is still one of the smoothest opening knives I have and the grittiness is so minor it does not affect opening at all. I put a little oil on it anyway. As far as Sal designing the blade farther forward in the handle, IMO I think it is good where it is because it allows for most of the finger choil to remain mostly in the handle area. It is perfect for those who can't, or prefer not to, carry a larger blade. I'm well-pleased with my paramilitary. I hope your lock-up tightens up, but if not I would contact Spyderco so they can get it taken care of for you.