Before I even say anything, I would like to give a very special THANK YOU and public acknowledgement to Audiopile - he sent me a brand new torsion bar/actuator bar set at absolutely no cost to me, I didn't even have to pay shipping. In today's day and age of ripoffs, con artists and generally mean people, kindness like that is a rare thing. Audio, you da man! :thumbup:
After my (very angry) post about not one, but two dud cylones out of the box, I recieved a couple of offers from other forum members offering to replace my knife. Tim Galyean offered to send me a prepaid package to send the knife back to him, and stated that he would replace it. Well, some time has gone by and I never recieved that package (did ya forget about me, Tim?
). However, before the whole debacle with the second knife, Audiopile had sent that package with the torsion bar and actuator bar - it just took next to forever to get to me. It finally showed up about two-three weeks ago, right around the same time Tim offered to replace the knife.
After a while, I got antsy and decided that rather than waiting for the prepaid package to get to me, I'd just take the thing apart, clean it up, and replace the bad parts with the new ones I got in the mail to see if that fixed the problem.
After looking at the parts I pulled out of my knife compared to the new ones, I can see why Kershaw made the design change to the actuator bar - that curved grind allowed the bar to flex ALOT. It was pretty torqued when I pulled it out. The torsion bar looked terrible too...I think it was stored in the "on" position with the blade closed ever since it left the factory (Nov 2006, over a year). That would explain the extremely poor performance (weak spring), and the speedsafe's failure to engage.
I got the knife back together, and WOW. Night and day difference, no question. The blade pops out faster than any auto I've ever owned. It's like lightning. The best part? No popping, snapping, clicking, or any other funky noises. I works perfectly now, every time.
The only thing I did wrong has to do with the on/off switch, becasue now I can't disengage the speedsafe mechanism. Time to take it apart again and get it right.
Anyway, this post got rather long, but I'm happy with my knife (FINALLY), and wanted you all to know that I'll be keeping it for a very long time. Thanks goes out to everyone who offered their help.
After my (very angry) post about not one, but two dud cylones out of the box, I recieved a couple of offers from other forum members offering to replace my knife. Tim Galyean offered to send me a prepaid package to send the knife back to him, and stated that he would replace it. Well, some time has gone by and I never recieved that package (did ya forget about me, Tim?
). However, before the whole debacle with the second knife, Audiopile had sent that package with the torsion bar and actuator bar - it just took next to forever to get to me. It finally showed up about two-three weeks ago, right around the same time Tim offered to replace the knife.After a while, I got antsy and decided that rather than waiting for the prepaid package to get to me, I'd just take the thing apart, clean it up, and replace the bad parts with the new ones I got in the mail to see if that fixed the problem.
After looking at the parts I pulled out of my knife compared to the new ones, I can see why Kershaw made the design change to the actuator bar - that curved grind allowed the bar to flex ALOT. It was pretty torqued when I pulled it out. The torsion bar looked terrible too...I think it was stored in the "on" position with the blade closed ever since it left the factory (Nov 2006, over a year). That would explain the extremely poor performance (weak spring), and the speedsafe's failure to engage.
I got the knife back together, and WOW. Night and day difference, no question. The blade pops out faster than any auto I've ever owned. It's like lightning. The best part? No popping, snapping, clicking, or any other funky noises. I works perfectly now, every time.
The only thing I did wrong has to do with the on/off switch, becasue now I can't disengage the speedsafe mechanism. Time to take it apart again and get it right.
Anyway, this post got rather long, but I'm happy with my knife (FINALLY), and wanted you all to know that I'll be keeping it for a very long time. Thanks goes out to everyone who offered their help.
barf