Question About Blade Play and Assisted Opening

S

Spazmaster

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Jul 31, 2012
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Very new to carrying a knife with me everywhere I go (Less then a week). I have some other knives but I dont carry them every day so I guess I havent cared about them as much.

The knife Ive been carrying is a Kershaw RJ II. Cheap knife, but I love it.

I have 2 questions about it though:

It has a little bit of side to side movement, fairly hard to notice but if I hold the knife and try to move the blade back and forth it wiggles a bit (1-2mm at the tip). Knife is brand new, should I be worried / how could it be minimized?

My second question is; With the Speed Safe technology from Kershaw, how hard is it supposed to be to open it with the flipper? I have to push fairly hard to get it open with the flipper and even harder to open it with the thumb stud (Actually ripped my finger because it was to tight)

How could I make it a little easier to open? Will it just wear in?

Sorry if these are newby questions, as I said, Im new to carrying knives and any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
You could loosen the pivot but then the play will increase. You could just send it in but if its a beater knife then you have nothing to worry about.
 
Blade play can be adjusted out by slightly tightening the pivot screw. As for the strong detent, I cant speak for that knife in particular as I have never handled one but in general, the detent will weaken a bit as it breaks in but speed safe knives should never be difficult to open. It may be that you just have to practice your opening technique. With assisted opening flippers the technique is to run your finger down the spine, letting the flipper just get in the way, you don't have to flip bit very hard with speedsafe knives, just get it moving and the torsion bar will do the rest.

Also, really not trying to be an dick here but maybe you just don't have overly tough hands. With proper technique, neither a flipper or a thumb stud of any kind, especially an assisted one, should ever rip up your finger. My advice would be to habitually open and close your knife hundreds of times a day like many of us...that should build up some calluses on your fingers :D
 
Thanks guys, Ive been opening it a ton and it seems to help. I also oiled the pivot, which it seems wasnt done very well when I purchased it because it actually started to squeak before I oiled it. Now after its oild and broken in its super easy to open. I also think the blade play is just me over-reacting because... well because its new :)
 
It has been my experience that speedsafe knives all tend to have just a little horizontal play. You can get rid of it by tightening the pivot, but that will make the assisted opening/flipped harder to operate. I wouldn't worry unless you get vertical play.
 
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