Sticky Liner Lock

W

WSHIII

Joined
Sep 15, 2008
Messages
5
Just purchased 2 Emerson Knives and one of them(CQC-11) has a liner lock that jams up, it's very hard to dislodge from the blade, when snapped open briskly. It works well enough if you gently open the knife but I'm not satisfied with it's present condition. I know I could send it back and have them fix it but I'd rather do it myself and save the down time. My question is, would you polish the angled portion of the blade where it locks up or the liner itself to help free things up. FWIW, I've already taken it apart once and worked on the blade with some success, I just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Thanks
 
WSHIII said:
Just purchased 2 Emerson Knives and one of them(CQC-11) has a liner lock that jams up, it's very hard to dislodge from the blade, when snapped open briskly. It works well enough if you gently open the knife but I'm not satisfied with it's present condition. I know I could send it back and have them fix it but I'd rather do it myself and save the down time. My question is, would you polish the angled portion of the blade where it locks up or the liner itself to help free things up. FWIW, I've already taken it apart once and worked on the blade with some success, I just want to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

Thanks
Click to expand...

No! The lock contact is the most critical part of the folder for safety, reliability and normal wear of the lock as well as being set so that the correct part of the lock contacts the blade when opened. Its needing broken in and I'd recommend trying to scribe on the contact with a #2 lead pencil to get some graphite in there to give it some ease until its self adjusted from wear after you've used it a while.

If its that bad that it simply won't get better send it in. Adjusting the lock will void the warranty, make it worse in all likelihood and it may even develop vertical play up and down in use, or the lock could move clear across the tang far sooner than it should.

If you just can't bring yourself to send it in try this. I'd suggest taking it apart and with the non lock side off the folder check to see how far out the lock travels on its own with no resistance. If it is trying to leave or has left the entire thickness of the blade you can take some of the spring out of the lock by hyper extension out the wrong way once the lock side scale and pocket clip are removed. This can always be sprung back at a later time providing you don't muscle the thing and get carried away with it to where it kinks. You should be able to do this free hand. Take it easy, spring it back to relieve some of that excess springiness it has after you have seen what it does with the stop pin removed and the non lock side off, the blade still there letting the lock come out like normal when opened other than these missing parts. This way you can see it all in action and once you know for sure how far it comes out compared to the blade tang contact you can adjust it so it only comes out to the middle or so, maybe three quarters the way across. Once its broken in good later and/or you first notice a hint of vertical up and down movement you can then spring the lock again to continue in so it self adjusts. What it wants to do now is travel all the way across the tang but it can't. So it gets stuck. Relieving the stress some from too much spring in conjunction with the pencil trick will fix it up for you until its finally adjusted itself out from use.

STR
 
STR

Thanks very much for the very detailed instructions. Just tried the pencil lead trick and it has already helped tremendously. May still try to "gently" hyper-extend the liner a little if it doesn't break in fast enough for my liking. I'm glad I asked, I was certainly headed up the wrong trail.

Thanks again.
 
Leave it alone...it will wear in and get better over time. If mine ever stick from being flicked open violently, I just pry them out with a key or something....not a big deal.
 
Last edited:
WSHIII said:
May still try to "gently" hyper-extend the liner a little if it doesn't break in fast enough for my liking. I'm glad I asked, I was certainly headed up the wrong trail.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

It will wear in when it wears in.

Dont go tampering with the lock just because its not happening fast enough for you.
All your doing is shortening the locks life span and you will end up having the opposite problem happen sooner rather than later.

:thumbup:
 
WSHIII said:
STR

Thanks very much for the very detailed instructions. Just tried the pencil lead trick and it has already helped tremendously. May still try to "gently" hyper-extend the liner a little if it doesn't break in fast enough for my liking. I'm glad I asked, I was certainly headed up the wrong trail.

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Not a problem. Its never a great idea to permanently alter the lock unless you are capable of building a new one altogether because once that is done it voids any warranty, can change the lock wear and life expectancy and sometimes make matters worse. Anything I suggest is not permanent and can be redone.

I've seen a great many liner locks in my shop and a good many Emersons. Some of them come with a spring really tensioned out there a lot when new. Others like my own CQC14 and some customers folders I've had mailed to me came with only enough spring tension to make the lock travel out about midway across the innerface and thats it. When this is the case as the lock wore in I had to increase the spring tension so the lock could continue to self adjust.

I've seen this in other brands as well. I'd say its one area of inconsistancy as well from high dollar frame locks to cheap Wal-Mart china mades. It may be that the lock tension is probably still something set by hand and I guess whenever the human hand is involved there will be some variances. I just had a Strider in here for vertical blade play and all it was was that the lock was not tensioned enough to make it continue to self correct so even in the high priced ones it can come up. Its a no brainer fix if you take your time but generally speaking if you can avoid messing with the lock and the pencil trick works for you I'd just do that and leave it alone unless it is just so overwhelming to your thumb that you can't deal with it any longer.

Good luck.

STR
 
Everybody is coming through loud and clear. I'll leave it alone and let it break in on it's own, patiently. It's already improved ten fold with the pencil trick.

Thanks again to everybody for your time.
 
Thanks for the pencil trick. Worked great. My Mini CQC-15s lock was really sticky. I know it has to break in but it was almost unusable. Thx guys!
 
break it in the normal way, trust me. I voided the warranty on a hd-7 and now she gets treated like a stepchild. Patience is key with them.
 
May i ask how you voided the warranty?
dasknife said:
break it in the normal way, trust me. I voided the warranty on a hd-7 and now she gets treated like a stepchild. Patience is key with them.
Click to expand...
 
shinyedges said:
May i ask how you voided the warranty?
Click to expand...
I love Emerson knives, they are my go to knife, but their production does have minor inconsistentcies. In the past I would tinker too much trying to help it break in and when it did break in things weren't as tight. Well I picked up a HD7 that had issues from the factory and instead of just returning it I tried to fix it and I did but could fix it all due to the lack of tools and he ended up writing my a letter stating that the warranty was voided and that I was SOL. Point is, unless it is clearly out of spec don't mess with it. The steel will massage the titanium into place.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top