Titanium Frame lock knives (RIL) vs ???

[Chris Pierce]

You may have seen a recent thread asking what knives are as strong as the up coming ESEE folding HEST knife with the RIL titanium lock. I believe that the person asking the question assumed that the HEST folding knife was going to be one of the strongest folders around. I asked this question in that thread, but was ignored....
So I figured that I might as well start my own thread, anyway my question is, has any one done strength testing on the RIL type knives? I'd like to see them compared to the Demko TriAd locking knives. Typical lock back knives, typical liner locks, axis type locks etc.
I'm not looking for noss type "destruction" testing, but something more along of lines of the triad weight testing. Or maybe Ankerson's testing regime.

 

[PG5768]

STR had a post or 2 a while ago on the strength of various locks. You might want to do a search in his subforum. I'll see what I can find, too.

 

[Biginboca]

I remember reading that Spyderco tested a Sebenza once and said that it performed very well. I don't know if the results were ever published but I recall it qualified as being a heavy duty lock.

The short of it is, the framelock design is as strong as it needs to be!

A folding knife has a number of inherant weaknesses such as pivot point, hollow handles, lock design, tolerances, etc. The framelock concept has been tested enough to show it is capable of withstanding the forces it needs to as a reliable part of this system.

 

[kreole]

I know Spyderco does do lock tests. I remember Sal saying the upper pin breaks before the lock bar on their compression lock, and there's a number of times he talks about different locks being rated MBC rated and such.

 

[nevermind35]

I read and posted in the thread that you're talking about and also saw your question but really didn't feel like opening the can of worms on such a debate. The short answer is that the Triad lock is a stronger lock design than the framelock. However there are many variables and different ways to test strength and all of them may not favor the Triad, however when talking about measuring and recording sheer force applied to the blade spine until failure the Triad lock will most definately win every time.

This is of course not to say that the framelock is a weak or incapable design as it is my personal favorite due to many things including simplicity of the design, and is found(In the form of a true Reeve Integral Lock-framelock or Walker Linerlock-linerlock) on many and or most high end production and customs.

If you wish to learn more about the details of what makes each lock perform the way they do and how they do it you might try a search of "Framelock strength", "Framelock cutout", "Triad strength", which may result in some interesting reading. Also search for STRs explaination of the framelock which was in heavy debate some months ago. I think he knows more about the subject, from experience, than most anyone else here.