UPDATE - Titanium Military Models with Reeve Integral Locks (R.I.L.)

MORIMOTOM said:
read the whole thing.

what i referred to mistakenly as wear resistance was abrasion resistance, i was corrected later in the thread.
Click to expand...

:confused:

When talking about metal, abrasion and wear have the same meaning in my book.

:confused:


Anyway.

The R.I.L on my Kershaw Volt, and the beefy Ti linerlock on my Hossom Retribution (production version) are both doing fine. Spyderco is usually picky with their locks, I trust that to hold true with the Ti Mili as much as any of their other knives.
 
i had never considered them to be different either.

i guess they are, others know far more about the properties of the metals than i, so i often defer to their expertise.

my experience with the ti was only that.
 
Generally speaking,
Titanium is softer, more elastic and sticky
Steel(after HT) on the other hand, is harder, stiffer and not sticky

When getting worn, steel gets worn down and flakes or burrs
Titanium on the other hand, being sticky and more elastic, won't get worn down as fast.

Being softer, Titanium is no good for impact or denting, it get squeezed and smashed.

In the case of lockbar design, it all comes down to one thing - geometry of the lockbar and matching blade tang.

The way how Mr. Reeve did it was designing the slope of blade tang as well as the lockbar head with a very shallow angle (and matching of course), so shallow that when pushed, the lockbar could go from 40% to 70%, or maybe 80%. Yet no or very little visible wear is caused even over a long period of time, because no sharp impact was caused to the lockbar head, and the lockbar head itself was torch burnt to have a thin layer of TiN and TiCN, which increase the surface hardness and surface wear resistance of the lockbar. This hardened surface does two things :1. prevent the lockbar from wearing, 2. prevent the lockbar from sticking to the tang.

Another thing is, RIL on the sebbie has an incredible large contact surface. This large and flat contact surface makes the lock more secure and prevents excessive wear.

Anyways, long story short. When i took down my RIL military, what i found was, with the curved and steep blade tang, every opening would cause the lockbar head to dent more and more, forming an unpleasant triangle dent, any RIL military owner knows what i am talking about. This is exactly the kinda wear we are discussing here, not exactly caused by physically "wearing", but continuous and repetitive impact. what makes this more severe is the fact that C36's blade tang slopes up, leaving a rather narrow spot for lock engagement. If this continues to happen, the lock would eventually wear out, although it get slower and slower. utilizing a steel block is great, but on the other hand i would suggest that spyderco redesign the geometry of the blade tang of the military, that will even further extend the lifespan of the lock.

hope i'm not making no sense.
 
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Au contraire, as your fellow citizens further east say. ;) That was a good read - thanks.

pj551016 said:
Generally speaking,
Titanium is softer, more elastic and sticky
Steel(after HT) on the other hand, is harder, stiffer and not sticky

When getting worn, steel gets worn down and flakes or burrs
Titanium on the other hand, being sticky and more elastic, won't get worn down as fast.

Being softer, Titanium is no good for impact or denting, it get squeezed and smashed.

In the case of lockbar design, it all comes down to one thing - geometry of the lockbar and matching blade tang.

The way how Mr. Reeve did it was designing the slope of blade tang as well as the lockbar head with a very shallow angle (and matching of course), so shallow that when pushed, the lockbar could go from 40% to 70%, or maybe 80%. Yet no or very little visible wear is caused even over a long period of time, because no sharp impact was caused to the lockbar head, and the lockbar head itself was torch burnt to have a thin layer of TiN and TiCN, which increase the surface hardness and surface wear resistance of the lockbar. This hardened surface does two things :1. prevent the lockbar from wearing, 2. prevent the lockbar from sticking to the tang.

Another thing is, RIL on the sebbie has an incredible large contact surface. This large and flat contact surface makes the lock more secure and prevents excessive wear.

Anyways, long story short. When i took down my RIL military, what i found was, with the curved and steep blade tang, every opening would cause the lockbar head to dent more and more, forming an unpleasant triangle dent, any RIL military owner knows what i am talking about. This is exactly the kinda wear we are discussing here, not exactly caused by physically "wearing", but continuous and repetitive impact. what makes this more severe is the fact that C36's blade tang slopes up, leaving a rather narrow spot for lock engagement. If this continues to happen, the lock would eventually wear out, although it get slower and slower. utilizing a steel block is great, but on the other hand i would suggest that spyderco redesign the geometry of the blade tang of the military, that will even further extend the lifespan of the lock.

hope i'm not making no sense.
Click to expand...
 
I think this is what pj is talking about, mine has about 5 months of EDC behind it, as the saying goes it has been "rode hard and put away wet" the new design should eliminate any chance of this happening on the KW and any other future models with the R.I.L.

Tilockbarwear.jpg
Tilockbarwear-1.jpg


I highlighted the area with significant wear
 
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Markous said:
I think this is what pj is talking about, mine has about 5 months of EDC behind it, as the saying goes it has been "rode hard and put away wet" the new design should eliminate any chance of this happening on the KW and any other future models with the R.I.L.

Tilockbarwear.jpg
Tilockbarwear-1.jpg


I highlighted the area with significant wear
Click to expand...


Wow. That is what I would call over extension of the lock bar. Hope your knife is OK after that.
 
pj551016 said:
Generally speaking,
Titanium is softer, more elastic and sticky
Steel(after HT) on the other hand, is harder, stiffer and not sticky

When getting worn, steel gets worn down and flakes or burrs
Titanium on the other hand, being sticky and more elastic, won't get worn down as fast.

Being softer, Titanium is no good for impact or denting, it get squeezed and smashed.

In the case of lockbar design, it all comes down to one thing - geometry of the lockbar and matching blade tang.

The way how Mr. Reeve did it was designing the slope of blade tang as well as the lockbar head with a very shallow angle (and matching of course), so shallow that when pushed, the lockbar could go from 40% to 70%, or maybe 80%. Yet no or very little visible wear is caused even over a long period of time, because no sharp impact was caused to the lockbar head, and the lockbar head itself was torch burnt to have a thin layer of TiN and TiCN, which increase the surface hardness and surface wear resistance of the lockbar. This hardened surface does two things :1. prevent the lockbar from wearing, 2. prevent the lockbar from sticking to the tang.

Another thing is, RIL on the sebbie has an incredible large contact surface. This large and flat contact surface makes the lock more secure and prevents excessive wear.

Anyways, long story short. When i took down my RIL military, what i found was, with the curved and steep blade tang, every opening would cause the lockbar head to dent more and more, forming an unpleasant triangle dent, any RIL military owner knows what i am talking about. This is exactly the kinda wear we are discussing here, not exactly caused by physically "wearing", but continuous and repetitive impact. what makes this more severe is the fact that C36's blade tang slopes up, leaving a rather narrow spot for lock engagement. If this continues to happen, the lock would eventually wear out, although it get slower and slower. utilizing a steel block is great, but on the other hand i would suggest that spyderco redesign the geometry of the blade tang of the military, that will even further extend the lifespan of the lock.

hope i'm not making no sense.
Click to expand...

That's one thing I've always appreciated about Kershaw's lock-bar engagement. They mate the tang cut out and lock bar surface flat with each other, making the contact patch as large as possible. Unfortunately, this can be the cause of vertical play later on. For some reason on a few of the liner locks and R.I.L's I have the lock-bar extends partly underneath the pivot pin... Why people even consider this an option in the design of a folder I will never understand.
In this respect the Military is done better than most, as the angled face on the lock-bar ensures that contact is only made at the point farthest away from the pivot. My Military contacts 3/8" away from the pivot, as opposed to the Volt which contacts 1/4" at the farthest, but also contacts nearly on the pivot point, not past, but right up to it.

Of my collection the JYD 2 and Shallot seems to be the best, with furthest contact being a whole 1/2" away from the pivot.
 
Joshua J. said:
That's one thing I've always appreciated about Kershaw's lock-bar engagement. They mate the tang cut out and lock bar surface flat with each other, making the contact patch as large as possible. Unfortunately, this can be the cause of vertical play later on. For some reason on a few of the liner locks and R.I.L's I have the lock-bar extends partly underneath the pivot pin... Why people even consider this an option in the design of a folder I will never understand.
In this respect the Military is done better than most, as the angled face on the lock-bar ensures that contact is only made at the point farthest away from the pivot. My Military contacts 3/8" away from the pivot, as opposed to the Volt which contacts 1/4" at the farthest, but also contacts nearly on the pivot point, not past, but right up to it.

Of my collection the JYD 2 and Shallot seems to be the best, with furthest contact being a whole 1/2" away from the pivot.
Click to expand...

I have no worry about kershaw framelocks having vertical play even after long time usage. The large contact patch slows down wear by a significant amount. Same story for Hinderer XM18, CR sebbies, and semi-production Burke folders (flippin ballistic,rockstar, runt, etc).

Yes, i would prefer the lockbar contact point to be as far from the pivot as possible, but on the other hand, i don't mind if the lockbar head is in contact with the blade tang as well under the pivot area, because the worst it can do is nothing.

PJ
 
Obviously a Canadian sleeper cell has been activated!

Grab Bob and head for the hills! I don't know why you need to drag him along but I always read about him in a SHTF situation. And Canadians organizing an orchestra attack is a SHTF situation if I've ever heard of one!

Eeek!
 
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