By the way, I would be very cautious about spine whacking that folder because typically, based on what I have seen and owned myself the Striders compared to say the Sebenza have less 'footprint' or 'surface area' of lock contact on the blade. What this can do is allow it to indent easier from this type of sudden snap and pressure on the contact.
Imagine the difference between your bump stop being a 1/16" diameter vs a 1/4" and you can see that while both are correct and both would work one will wear better for you than the other by offering a larger area to wear down even if just slight. Same thing with the lock only more so due to it being titanium on your folder which is softer than the blade by quite a bit. I post a pic here of a contact I call 'ideal' shown by the three tier arrow hash marks on the lower portion of the lock. (top pic)
Now imagine that three tier contact as the Sebenza where I have put three marks on the area that should contact the lock. This is what I call making a super contact. Now occasionally a two tier contact shows up and on the Striders it seems to me like the Emerson folders being more akin to a one tier surface area foot print in the correct area of lock to make contact and you have what I think is the main reason the Sebenza lock has a rep for longer wear between adjustment and less reports of vertical play and less reports of sticking problems than other brands because Chris is more anal retentive about specific tolerances but its more than this obviously as we are just focused here on that one dimensional aspect on paper not speaking of the type of contact created or the angle used, which again is different on both folders mentioned. This may have to do with types of uses each folder recieves respectively though and I bring it up just based on my own observations. It also has to do with blade rock which is the case when all or too much contact of the lock is made at the upper part of the lock (second picture) indicated by the one arrow hash mark.
All makers shoot for an ideal and there is a margin for error where you can hit that ideal or miss it by a little and the lock and contact is still within normal tolerance and considered correctly done. Both work. Sometimes we hit closer to best case scenario than others as is the case in anything.
If when you break down your folder it seems to have a one tier contact based on wear pattern it does not mean its wrong or even a problem usually. Its just not as big a foot print as you could have idealy without blade rock. A small foot print of lock contact can also make it quite challenging to adjust out by bumping up the size of the stop pin since that effectively reduces the foot print each time you do it. Usually peening makes the lock stick also.
Blade rock is contacts like many of the Buck Strider 880 and 881 folders have. This is so often seen in these folders that many people ask before buying one used how the contact is on the lock when one shows up for sale. Questions like ' is the lock up solid' come up quite often with those folders due to too much of the contact has the upper portion of the lock involved in the contact. Most don't know why its that way, they just know they observed it in their own knives and saw it or heard about it in others. I had to buy four of these to find one with a solid lock up just as one example of the prevalence.. I also had to repair countless ones for this because they had too much contact instead of the opposite of the ideal. What I mean is that the lock contacted four or five teir foot print in size so imagine five hash marks or six and ideally to be correct with no blade rock the contact has to be as far away from the midline of the pivot barrel as possible without allowing blade rock. If it rocks it still connects too much on the upper (detent ball end) of the lock and not the lower (traction groove release area for thumb. Remove the area of the upper part of the lock that is messing with the lock up and suddenly its a rock solid lock with no rocking and no evidence of anything but smooth easy sliding in and out connecting on more than just the inside corner of the lock face but more evenly distributed across the thickness of the lock contact to midway or greater and vertically connecting for a bigger foot print for a better longer wearing contact less prone to sticking. Hope that makes sense. I re-read what I wrote yesterday and tried to make some of it clearer this morning.
STR
