Revelation.................???

[Clay]

This is a long post. Please bare with me........

So I make this quote/unquote Franken-Bali last week, out of spare parts (translation: broken Balis).

BEAR Tanto blade and Jag handles to be more specific. The thing works great! I sent exclusive pics to SniperBoy to use on her Franken-Bali page, so you'll have to wait until she posts it to see it....... but I digress.

Ok, here's the deal: The Balis I have, and have worked with, all the the same characteristics regarding the tang pin. Handles slam open, and sandwich the pin with tremendous force. Tang pin stops the handles in the full open position AND absorbs ALL the force of said opening. All this equals tight lock-up, but at the expense of the handles. Agreed??

In the illustration we have the following:
(1) BM 44s
(2) Jaguar
(3) Franken-Bali (BEAR blade-Jag handles)
(4) BEAR handle

Notice how tightly the BM(1) and Jag(2) sandwich the Tang pin. Notice also the size diffence in the Tang pins themselves. Now look at the relationship to the Pivot pin spacing.

The BEAR Tang pin(3) is huge, and the Pivot pins are spaced further apart. My take on this is simple: BEAR wanted to make the Tang pin stronger, and decrease the angle that the handles slam into the pins. Good idea, but the taper of the handle is such that, the Tang pin still takes all the force.

Notice though the Franken-Bali(3). The butt of the handles hit together at the same time the handles make contact with the Tang pin. Therefore, spreading out the force through the length of the handles. BEAR had it, but they screwed up by shaving a bit of the height off of the butt of the handles.

The lock-up on the Franken-Bali(3)is still tight (with minimal travel) but the Tang pin is not recessed into the handles! After quite a bit of use (opening & closing/stab & slash drills), the handle damage has been negligible. Anyone else see the beauty in this???

With this design, makers could also use a rectangular or oval Tang pin to decrease the handle damage even more, while increasing the tightness of the lock-up.

Does all this make sense???
Anyone care to expand on this, or for that matter burst my bubble???




------------------
Clay
www.balisongxtreme.com
Because......
getting 'em open
is half the fun!

 

[BalisongMan]

Clay: I currently have 2 balis, they are the exact JAG and a tanto BEAR that are in your picture. I have a problem with both of them in regards to the tang pin having taken so much force that neither will stay open, and only the JAG (after a little fix) will stay closed. One thing I attribute the JAG staying closed to is that I COMPLETELY disassembled it, put in new pins (including latch pin) and put back in the tang pin (which is now really messed up, i.e. bent, disfigured and non-functional in the open position.) I noticed that the tang pin on my BEAR is now oval: horizontally. The pin either needs to be a bit smaller in diameter or made of tougher material.

Also, does anyone have the same problem with thier tanto BEAR as I do with the latch constantly hitting the blade? It doesn't hit the blade 1/2 as much on my JAG.

And lastly, I have e-mailed Travis Noteboom from BM about the mdl 42 and he told me that you would have to send the knife to BM to have the blades interchanged. I was under the impression that you could just buy separate blades and change them at will. Maybe I'm just stupid. I personally have never held nor seen in person a BM Bali-song, so I do not know from experience the quality or "feel" of a BM.

BTW, I was old enough to have been able to comprehend (when Bali-songs were produced and sold) what a butterfly knife was when they went off of the market. I can't legally buy them

Oh well!!

BalisongMan
Cameron

 

[jimborainey]

I also own that same Bear bali.. My first complaint was that the tang pin wasn't long enough. It needed to stick out a little further on both sides so that it wouldn't dig into the handles quite as quickly.. so I drilled the piece-o-crap out of there (man that thing was hard), and replaced it with a cool torx-head screw I found laying around.. that made it better, but all it really did was slow down the inevitable formation of the handle indentions.. The aluminum handles are just too soft to take all that banging at one little spot.. I'm beginning to think that the whole 'tang pin' idea just plain sucks. Maybe if there were some steel on the handles at those particular spots, that would help.. the rectangular tang pin idea seems pretty good too..

--
j rainey

 

[Cthulhu]

I was thinking of maybe a bit of rubber on either side right where the tangpin hits, ive done this with a couple of my cheapies and a rubber band, works out good