I didn't expect this TBH...
The spring that gives the lockbar tension just broke on me. I have been playing with one of my Swift II(i got 2 cause i love it) for 2 weeks, mostly just opening and closing it. When I was opening it today like normal, no wrist flick, i heard a loud secondary snap right after the blade flew out and the lockbar was rotated outward, then a piece of steel came out of the handle...
The thread below shows the inside of Swift 2, and you can see that the spring holding the lockbar is not from the backspacer like how a usual triad lock work.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1327103-Swift-2-assisted-opening-mechanism
Refer to the pic from the link above, the lockbar spring on mine broke at exactly the point where it widens near the screw at the butt end of the handle. A couple of observation:
1. I've take my other Swift 2 apart and found that the entire piece of spring/liner is chrome plated. I wonder what steel it is. Also, looking at the fracture point, it's coarse/powdery, most likely due to stress fatigue.
2. The spring gets flexed everytime you open and close the knife, however unlike normal backlock spring where the thinner part of the cross section is bending, Swift II lock spring is bending at the thicker part. I.e. bending a ruler normally vs bending it sideway...
The liner/spring combo is a smart design, very similar to Benchmade's Nitrous Stryker, as it's near impossible to break the assisted spring under normal uses. However IMO the lock spring needs to be improved to stand up to the repeated opening/closing cycles. Maybe mine is just a one off case so i can't make any conclusion here, but it's worth looking into.
BTW, i'm not trying to hurt CS reputation here, just wanna see if anyone has seen similar issue and hopefully help improve the design of future assisted CS folders.
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*UPDATE* - 03/05/16
It's a bummer, i've been carrying the Swift II CS sent me as a replacement for the broken one for the past 2 days, and the lockbar spring broke again today. Just like last time, lockbar spring snapped at the exact same place as the previous one. This happens when i was closing the knife. A snap, then lockbar lost resistance, then the spring fell out when you opened it again.
Also, it's not that it took 2-3 months of usage for it to break, i haven't been having swift in edc my rotation for a while and has only started carrying it again this month. So it's only been probably 2-3 weeks of normal pocket use time and less than couple of hundred of opening/closing since i got it.
At this point i'm pretty convinced that this is a design issue, not a lemon. The problem is, i don't know how to proceed next. I can spend money(again) and ship this back to CS again, but i don't want to get the same thing knowing that it could break on me again and it's a waste time and money to repeat this process if it happens next time.
Any advise CS rep? Does the 2016 redesigned Swift series solve the weak lockbar spring issue?
The spring that gives the lockbar tension just broke on me. I have been playing with one of my Swift II(i got 2 cause i love it) for 2 weeks, mostly just opening and closing it. When I was opening it today like normal, no wrist flick, i heard a loud secondary snap right after the blade flew out and the lockbar was rotated outward, then a piece of steel came out of the handle...
The thread below shows the inside of Swift 2, and you can see that the spring holding the lockbar is not from the backspacer like how a usual triad lock work.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1327103-Swift-2-assisted-opening-mechanism
Refer to the pic from the link above, the lockbar spring on mine broke at exactly the point where it widens near the screw at the butt end of the handle. A couple of observation:
1. I've take my other Swift 2 apart and found that the entire piece of spring/liner is chrome plated. I wonder what steel it is. Also, looking at the fracture point, it's coarse/powdery, most likely due to stress fatigue.
2. The spring gets flexed everytime you open and close the knife, however unlike normal backlock spring where the thinner part of the cross section is bending, Swift II lock spring is bending at the thicker part. I.e. bending a ruler normally vs bending it sideway...
The liner/spring combo is a smart design, very similar to Benchmade's Nitrous Stryker, as it's near impossible to break the assisted spring under normal uses. However IMO the lock spring needs to be improved to stand up to the repeated opening/closing cycles. Maybe mine is just a one off case so i can't make any conclusion here, but it's worth looking into.
BTW, i'm not trying to hurt CS reputation here, just wanna see if anyone has seen similar issue and hopefully help improve the design of future assisted CS folders.
################################
*UPDATE* - 03/05/16
It's a bummer, i've been carrying the Swift II CS sent me as a replacement for the broken one for the past 2 days, and the lockbar spring broke again today. Just like last time, lockbar spring snapped at the exact same place as the previous one. This happens when i was closing the knife. A snap, then lockbar lost resistance, then the spring fell out when you opened it again.
Also, it's not that it took 2-3 months of usage for it to break, i haven't been having swift in edc my rotation for a while and has only started carrying it again this month. So it's only been probably 2-3 weeks of normal pocket use time and less than couple of hundred of opening/closing since i got it.
At this point i'm pretty convinced that this is a design issue, not a lemon. The problem is, i don't know how to proceed next. I can spend money(again) and ship this back to CS again, but i don't want to get the same thing knowing that it could break on me again and it's a waste time and money to repeat this process if it happens next time.
Any advise CS rep? Does the 2016 redesigned Swift series solve the weak lockbar spring issue?
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I hope this is an isolated incident. No issues with mine so far, but I've only opened and closed it maybe 4-5 dozen times.
