Spyderco Civilian Questions

No need to change it...either way is fine. :)
In the end it all worked out. :thumbup:

Heck, I ended up learning something too, and that's not a bad thing. :thumbup::thumbup:
 
But yes, it really does suck. I was fairly new, not to knives, but to high end
or better quality knives. The $150 I spent on it was very substantial to me
at the time.

It looks like the newer ones have a slightly different blade shape and I'm glad
they got that fixed. It does look very pretty.
 
I'll leave it as is to preserve the converstation for other readers
but thank you for doing the research and trying to understand my
perspective. Sometimes things sound odd, but are still true, as you
already know. It's hard to sort them though...
 
Shrub said:
But yes, it really does suck. I was fairly new, not to knives, but to high end
or better quality knives. The $150 I spent on it was very substantial to me
at the time.

It looks like the newer ones have a slightly different blade shape and I'm glad
they got that fixed. It does look very pretty.
Click to expand...

$150 isn't cheap (even after spending far more along the way, it still isn't cheap), and with the downward curve to the blade, having it able to move towards the backspacer like that is not good.

Shrub said:
I'll leave it as is to preserve the converstation for other readers
but thank you for doing the research and trying to understand my
perspective. Sometimes things sound odd, but are still true, as you
already know. It's hard to sort them though...
Click to expand...

It really is hard to understand another's experiences at times---especially when they don't match our own---but it's worth it. :)
 
stabman said:
$150 isn't cheap (even after spending far more along the way, it still isn't cheap), and with the downward curve to the blade, having it able to move towards the backspacer like that is not good.
Click to expand...

No it's not. Probably the most disappointed and angry I've ever been at a knife.
I guess the warranty/cs departments' refusal to help me made it worse and
it's still a sore subject in my mind years later. I don't mean to seem defensive.
 
To the OP, as per durability of the tip, sounds like they may have
improved on that, and with he newer model, your experiance may be
much better than mine. But it does sound like edc may be a real
issue simply due to sharpening/maintenance.
Whatever you do, I hope it goes well. And sorry for semi-hijacking
your thread.
 
stabman said:
Squeezing my Civilian right now...Blade does not move at all.
On the traditional Buck folder, sure, squeezing it makes a difference.

NONE of my Spyderco's do that, because they are designed not to.

Perhaps the older, way older Civilian wasn't designed the same as every other Spyderco I have held or owned; I guess such a thing is possible.

But the newer (2007 and up at least) models sure are following the general Spyderco design.

It isn't a thing of having a stop pin either, as Spyderco lockbacks do not.
Here's a thread that explains it: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1004337-Lockback-Question

EDIT: From that thread it does seem like some Spyderco's in the past have been done wrong in that regard...sucks that the one you got was one of those.
Click to expand...

I had missed this series of posts by Shrub...:rolleyes:

You don't need to back down on this Stabman: What he describes is mechanically absolutely impossible on the Civilian, as you suspected, and this from the earliest Civilians made: It was impossible on my first one, and that one would be 17 years old now... There never was any real design changes to the bottom of the blade's ricasso, other than slight production variations: The very early example here shows no real ricasso differences to the new G-10 I got last year:

civilians_left.jpg


If you look at how the Civilian's ricasso comes to rest, the "Heel" of the ricasso is lower than the edge, so, because of this, the edge cannot touch the locking bar at first, and if it can't on closing, it will never go much further, because the heel rests almost on top of the bar's pivot pin: No Civilian had the ricasso's heel higher than the edge, because no one would ever be stupid enough to grind a blade that way...

Because the heel of the ricasso ends a little short of the locking bar's pivot point when closing, this means that if you forcefully depress the lockbar release as you forcefully push the blade past its fully closed point, you will indeed get the blade to move down an extra 0.8 mm at the tip... Unfortunately for Shrub's fairytale, there is at least 2.5 mm of clearance to the handle, so that covers barely one third of the distance, and all these features have never changed on any Civilian: So in the Civilian you hold you have the proof this story of the tip hitting the handle is completely impossible... Nobody can produce a photo of a Civilian's tip touching the inside of the handle, because it is a physical impossibility on all models, no matter what the production tolerances were.

The very fact he describes the blade going much further after clicking closed, shows he has no understanding of the mechanism: It is exactly like saying that if a book is closed tightly enough, the page order can get mixed up... I think this is so basic, it remains true for all knives that share this type of forward locking bar pivot point configuration: I seem to remember other cheap mid-handle pivot point lockbak designs allowing what he says, such as Buck 110 clones, which is probably where he got the idea of his impossible story... Even so, I remember that this contact required depressing the locking bar while pressing down on the the blade, or really pressing hard on the blade, and it could certainly not happen in some non-deliberate way, which is what he implies.

The lack of "stop pins": Yet another clue he has never seen how the knife works: It is not "stop pins" that matters: He apparently confuses liner locks with lockbacks! It is the ricasso's heel hitting near the lockbar's pivot point: When you hear the heel touch on closing, for the blade to go much further than the 0.8 mm I mentionned (as he absurdly claims) would require the lockbar's pivot point to move upwards, or the blade pivot point to move down... This is of course impossible, and he is just making things up, probably out of a dislike for the design...

There are many other clues (aside from the basic story being impossible) that shows he is making things up:

Quote, Shrub: "I let it close, with just the power of the back spring.
Due to a lack of stop pin, the tip hit against the backspring and
about a 1/2 inch of the tip snapped off."

The "backspring" is nowhere near the tip on closing... :rolleyes: And it has no power at all to its closing sequence, so this person would have us believe that 1/2", no less, of a curved steel blade would snap off with nearly no force at all... Given that any contact is an absolute physical impossibility to begin with, I'll leave it up to you to judge the veracity of his story...

Or, to put it another way, until somebody produces pictures of a fully assembled Civilian touching its handle with its tip extremity by overclosing, you don't have to buy any of this crap.

Gaston
 
Last edited:
Hi Shrub,

Sorry for your negative experience. I designed all of our lockbacks to have the kick hit the lock at the lock pivot to prevent the tip from hitting the backspacer. That is oneof the advantages of the mid lock-back as I was taught by Al Mar and Harvey McBurnette. The Civilian is one of my designs and the tip should not be able to hit the backspacer. I was not involved in your cusomer service experience, so I never saw the knife. But I'm sorry you have a negative experience.

I agree with brownshoe on not showing and keeping it sharp. If you want a cutting defensive tool to perform at its best, and it's a Spyderco, better to use another EDC and leave the edge pristine. You hope never to use it (like a spare tire) but, IMO, give yourself the advantages of a very sharp edge.

sal
 
Hello Sal. I think the reason you never saw the knife is because he never sent it, and he likely never owned one, because his complaint is based on what rear-lock knives are like, and he wrongly assumed mid-locks were capable of the same problem...

BTW, thanks for designing what I think is the greatest self-defense folder ever made. I really feel the need to say it.

Gaston
 
Shrub said:
To the OP, as per durability of the tip, sounds like they may have
improved on that, and with he newer model, your experiance may be
much better than mine. But it does sound like edc may be a real
issue simply due to sharpening/maintenance.
Whatever you do, I hope it goes well. And sorry for semi-hijacking
your thread.
Click to expand...

No problem! This thread really took off without my watching it for a few days. I appreciate your input.
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi Shrub,

Sorry for your negative experience. I designed all of our lockbacks to have the kick hit the lock at the lock pivot to prevent the tip from hitting the backspacer. That is oneof the advantages of the mid lock-back as I was taught by Al Mar and Harvey McBurnette. The Civilian is one of my designs and the tip should not be able to hit the backspacer. I was not involved in your cusomer service experience, so I never saw the knife. But I'm sorry you have a negative experience.

I agree with brownshoe on not showing and keeping it sharp. If you want a cutting defensive tool to perform at its best, and it's a Spyderco, better to use another EDC and leave the edge pristine. You hope never to use it (like a spare tire) but, IMO, give yourself the advantages of a very sharp edge.

sal
Click to expand...

Thank you for joining in, Sal! I'm glad to see you here. I completely agree with the use and intent of the design, but the design is so intriguing that I am tempted to at least try it for EDC, even though I have many other great Spyderco and other EDC's. What is your take on what the tip can take as far as a theoretical EDC?
 
I did not design the knife to be used as an EDC. I wouldn't use my Civvie or P'Kal as an EDC. I would carry a 2nd knife.

sal
 
Sal Glesser said:
I did not design the knife to be used as an EDC. I wouldn't use my Civvie or P'Kal as an EDC. I would carry a 2nd knife.

sal
Click to expand...

Fair enough. I may have to give that a try. I have now a P'Kal that I've been dabbling in carrying as a secondary blade for quick deployment, so when I get around to a Civilian, hopefully I can make the pocket space. :)
 
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