Spyderco Paramilitary 2

Discovery:

I tore the knife down to clean the pivot and better understand the construction of the knife. Once apart, I saw something I wouldn't expect... A burr on the liner where the bushing sits!



I looked at the bushing and the burr had marred it.



I excuse things like this on mass-produced items. It was easily fixable, but i would have rather not had to do it! I took my sharpening stones to the liner to smooth out the burr and made it flat. I smoothed out the bushing as well, and put the knife back together. Fun fact: Getting the pivot tension set is no treat. Why Spyderco chose to use two screws to set tension is beyond me. I'll ask the Spyderco forum if there are any tricks to getting it smooth, but not blade-play loose.
 
The Spyderco forum solved the mystery for me.

Turns out, the blade stop pin screws ALSO determine blade tightness. I Peter North'd Loctite all over the screws, set all 4 (!) correctly, and now the blade falls under its own weight. I feel like this could have been easier if Spyderco had just added .001" to the width of the stop pin and pivot barrel... But I'm not a knife manufacturer :D
 
Cypress said:
The Spyderco forum solved the mystery for me.

Turns out, the blade stop pin screws ALSO determine blade tightness. I Peter North'd Loctite all over the screws, set all 4 (!) correctly, and now the blade falls under its own weight. I feel like this could have been easier if Spyderco had just added .001" to the width of the stop pin and pivot barrel... But I'm not a knife manufacturer :D
Click to expand...
I think the stop pin used to be longer. You used to be able to torque down the stop pin, then adjust your pivot. I'm not sure why they changed it.
 
Update:

I've been using the hell out of this knife! It's not much of a chopper, but I have been using it quite hard. I was mowing with the tractor yesterday and the long hay gummed up the PTO, releasing the attachment and blowing a U-joint. I ended up having to cut through 12-20 inches of densely wrapped grass/hay to reach the parts. The knife ended up striking the cast iron parts a few times, chipping the edge slightly. 5 minutes hitting the microbevel and it was ready to rock again.

I recently decided to make a denim micarta handle for a Mule Team knife. I diced a pair of jeans into 3"x7" rectangles against an MDF cutting board. After the entire job was done, the edge showed chipping and rolling. More microbevel work and it's fresh again.

Denim did this

 
the pm2 is my favorite spyderco to use. ive got 3 manix, 1 ffg, 1 saber plain, one saber 1/2 serrated, yojimbo 2 at the moment. (pm2 & yojimbo are compression locks).

while it took me a minute to close them well, ive found that they are the strongest and easiest locks for me to use.

yes, i have a griptillian, and know that the axis lock is sweet in a lot of ways, but ive not been carrying much of anything but the pm2 since i got it and started using it.

the manix is stronger, id wager, but its soooo heavy in comparison.

the ball lock is sweet, but i feel that the "flick factor" of the pm2 is much greater, likely due to the lighter blade. at least it seems that way to me

my zt0350 is a technically well built knife (i appreciate the exacting neatness and tight tolerances exhibited by kai) but it eats up my pants, and the blade shape is a pain to sharpen in comparison. it feels huge in the pocket, and weighs a ton in comparison. tough sob though(which is the point, so the weight is in a sense necessary to the purpose of the thing).....
the pm2 seems to open faster than the assisted 0350 with flicker stud, which isn't fair to the zt, being that it has much more blade to move.....but still, makes a difference in the feel and use.

good review.
 
Blade shape is a huge factor in me buying a knife. Can't stand recurve blades, so my "bruiser" knife is my BM 520, but like you say about the ZT, the stepped aluminum scales destroy my pockets and the damn thing weighs half a pound.

The lock on the PM2 isn't an issue anymore... Index finger makes the blade swing free! If I time it right, I can release the lock just as the blade enters the handle, activating the detent. It's like having an axis lock, but in a different position.
 
Cypress said:
The Spyderco forum solved the mystery for me.

Turns out, the blade stop pin screws ALSO determine blade tightness. I Peter North'd Loctite all over the screws, set all 4 (!) correctly, and now the blade falls under its own weight. I feel like this could have been easier if Spyderco had just added .001" to the width of the stop pin and pivot barrel... But I'm not a knife manufacturer :D
Click to expand...

lol..
 
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