Who else cringes when they see all the blades on a knife open at the same time?

Ok....I feel like I am in shackles, head facing down - too ashamed to look up at my peers.....

ok, ok I have done it, and I have done it many times -only to have taken photos then I always snap them back in, I have never ( yet ) had a case of the spring being weakened, but I did hear you loud and clear.... I can understand you wanting to smack your mate with a comment like that...it reminds me when my friend had a German vistor who loved knives, well, Mark my good mate asked if I could show him as he was so keen to have a look -so I packed all me prized beauties up and bought them along...after some time of looking, discussing etc, Marks wife wanted to get the table ready for tea, and in one foul swoop collected up a row of my babies...the sickeneing noise of them clattering together whilst being swooped up was unbelievable!!

I have found some pics here of some complete bloody idiot who has has done just this.....







Oh....hold on...wait, ummmm these seem to be mine, Oh yeah I was doing this to show just what you should NEVER do with knives -

honestly on a serious note...
I am sorry because it is me who does this a lot for the sake of the photo-and do you want to know something? as I do this I am actually telling myself off - and on top of that - and I know you all must have done it - I always cut myself doing this simply because its not how the knife is meant to be opened!
My apologies my friends, I agree with what is being said, and I think its quite hypocritical of me to continue doing so,
 
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I have a bunch of knife pics with all the blades opened. They were taken before I learned my lesson.

I was opening the blades on this Ulster Boy Scout knife to take some pics of it and the backspring snapped in two. You can't see it in the photo but the backspring is toast. If this would have happened to almost any other knife I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed. The knife belonged to a very dear friend of the family who passed away in 2011 at the age of 98. It holds more sentimental value than any other knife I own or have ever owned.

I was going to carry it but not now. It sits in its own display case instead. A lesson learned the hard way.

 
Didn't mean to bring up so many guilty feelings. :eek:

I've done it too, :overy rarely, you won't see many pics from me where they're all half open unless they have half stops
 
Ted, actually agree, and its a darned good reminder, we are meant to be showing good Etiquette here in traditionals, and as I said earlier, I have always cut myself quite badly in continuing to practice this poor habit - so thank you Sir!
 
I'm not going to lie, I've never given this any thought, and am very much so guilty of this atrocity. I'll keep it in mind, in the future, threads like these keep me humble.
 
Well, the first time you do this, and then throw it like a ninja star, while shouting a ninja sound, then you can really cringe (I promise, I only did this as a very young child!).
 
This is the kind of story that would make me NEVER do this. Thanks for sharing this. I remember I had my grandfathers old stag boyscout knife and I wanted to take cool photos all open but I was too afraid to hurt the knife.

I'm sorry for your loss on that one, Rick. I know this sounds odd, but when bad things happen I try to look for the best, so maybe this time carrying it would have led to losing it all together? You never know :)

Kevin
Railsplitter said:
I have a bunch of knife pics with all the blades opened. They were taken before I learned my lesson.

I was opening the blades on this Ulster Boy Scout knife to take some pics of it and the backspring snapped in two. You can't see it in the photo but the backspring is toast. If this would have happened to almost any other knife I probably wouldn't have been so disappointed. The knife belonged to a very dear friend of the family who passed away in 2011 at the age of 98. It holds more sentimental value than any other knife I own or have ever owned.

I was going to carry it but not now. It sits in its own display case instead. A lesson learned the hard way.

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I noticed at the knife show today that almost every single vendor had the knives out on display with all the blades open in various different positions even GEC themselves had some of them out like that at their booth. Is this just because they don't care or it's not as big of a deal as some people feel it is? Does it really hurt the knife in a matter of minutes or a day or 2 or would it take a long time being left like that to actually hurt anything? Have me curious now because I had never heard of this but it does kinda make sense I guess.
 
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Well folks, this is the time when those of us who believe in "one blade per spring" are shaking are heads sayin', "what in the heck is you afeared of?" The only time there is extreme stress on a spring is when you got a blade on each end and you tweak both ends of the spring at once.

I'm still not certain that such punishment will weaken a spring, but I can understand that you might flat out break it.
 
richstag said:
This is the kind of story that would make me NEVER do this. Thanks for sharing this. I remember I had my grandfathers old stag boyscout knife and I wanted to take cool photos all open but I was too afraid to hurt the knife.

I'm sorry for your loss on that one, Rick. I know this sounds odd, but when bad things happen I try to look for the best, so maybe this time carrying it would have led to losing it all together? You never know :)

Kevin
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Thank you for those words of encouragement, Kevin. This happened nearly 2 years ago so much of the disappointment has faded. I had some engraving done on a display case and I'm happy with the way it turned out. The case sits on a shelf right next to me on the office desk so the knife is always "with me" so to speak. Even though I can't carry it, it's still close by for me to enjoy visually. Maybe this is for the best because like you said, losing the knife would have been worse.

I don't want to derail this thread so I attached only a small photo below instead of using Photobucket. Those who would like a closer look can click to enlarge it if they want to.

knarfeng said:
Well folks, this is the time when those of us who believe in "one blade per spring" are shaking are heads sayin', "what in the heck is you afeared of?" The only time there is extreme stress on a spring is when you got a blade on each end and you tweak both ends of the spring at once.

I'm still not certain that such punishment will weaken a spring, but I can understand that you might flat out break it.
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I agree, Frank. That's exactly what happened to me.

I would like to add that I remember reading somewhere on this forum that these Ulster Boy Scout knives are prone to spring breakage in the first place. I know I read that somewhere but unfortunately I read it too late. Although I will never do this again, I can't help thinking that this type of spring breakage is more the exception than the rule. I've done this hundreds of times and only had one spring break on me.
 
I am guilty of doing it for a quick photo. A couple of these have two springs.


The 90's and newer Buck made folders had/has a spring for each blade. The contracted folders did not. I have never had one break. One 'era' of the model 700's Buck folders did have some spring problems and its generally considered not to open them in the improper manner.

300
 
knarfeng said:
Well folks, this is the time when those of us who believe in "one blade per spring" are shaking are heads sayin', "what in the heck is you afeared of?"
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Frank, thank you for expressing my thoughts as well.
Anyway, in every picture I have seen of the Schrade OT stockman knives (just to make an example), the knives were displayed with all the blades open, and I would bet that some of them have stayed in their clam shells for years without any issue. I'm not sure whether a "good" backspring (properly heat treated and so on) would suffer from being open on both sides, or not; it's not really something that involves me, since my taste in knives kind of excludes crinked blades on opposite ends and on the same spring. Yet I'm sorry if this behaviour has ruined anyone's knife (like Rick's), and anyway, aside from a few minutes to take a picture, I don't really see why knives should be kept open.

Fausto
:cool:
 
It seems like Mr Bose and kin think differently
[video=youtube;iiLIUskCHNY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiLIUskCHNY[/video]
 
300Bucks has got the right idea. As long as only one end of the spring is stressed I don't think there is any risk of damage.

Partially opened cam tang blades that ride on the same spring is where the danger lies.

 
This subject has been cussed, discussed and hashed over for a small forever. Not just by knife people but in the gun community as well. There are as many people who swear by both ends of the argument as there are grains of sand on the beach and all with examples to prove their point.

I'm against the "weak spring" theory (the industry term and the word y'all are looking for is "relaxation") for three reasons. I have pistol magazines that have remained fully loaded for years with no discernible degradation in performance. I've also driven cars that were twenty years old which had gone through shocks but never needed springs changed because they had "relaxed" beyond acceptable limits. (Yes, car springs have been known to "sag" but it's not a common occurrence.) Springs fail for several reasons, from poor design (who said knife makers are spring experts. It's a complicated field.) to poor manufacturing processes, to yes; abuse. I do not however believe well designed and manufactured knife springs suffer "relaxation" during normal use and abuse, no matter how old the knife is.

It's my opinion that any spring, knife or other wise, that suffers "relaxation" beyond acceptable limits, after being loaded briefly within design specs, is a spring that is defective due to some glitch in the manufacturing process and not faulty due to misuse.

Here's the third reason from Rockford Spring's (manufacturers of springs of all kinds) position on the subject. http://www.rockfordspring.com/relaxationofsprings.asp

Relaxation of Springs
Most springs are subject to some amount of relaxation during their life span even at room temperature. The amount of spring relaxation is a function of

•the spring material
•the stress the spring is exposed to
•the temperature
•the amount of time the spring is exposed to the higher stresses and temperatures.
This relaxation is usually less than 1 or 2% at room temperature, but can be much more when the spring is exposed to higher stresses or higher temperatures.


Relaxation is different than ordinary set. A highly stressed spring will set the first several times it is pressed, but within 5 to 10 cycles it has set as much as it is going to set.

Relaxation of springs is a function of a fairly high stress (but usually lower that required to cause set) over a period of time. A spring held at a certain stress will actually relax more in a given time than a spring cycled between that stress and a lower stress. The reason is that it spends more time at the high stress.

It is often necessary to predict the amount of spring relaxation to expect over a certain period of time. This is done by first determining the operating temperature, the maximum amount of stress the spring sees and how long the spring will be exposed to the maximum stress and the elevated temperature over its lifetime.

Rockford Spring Company has charts for several materials and temperatures. Examples are given below. For situations where the charts do not cover the specific case, we can do accelerated spring relaxation experiments for specific springs. This is done by measuring relaxation at short intervals such as 1 hour, 5 hours, 10 hours, 50 hours and 100 hours and then plotting % relaxation vs. log time. The resulting graph can be extrapolated to 5, 10, 20 years or longer to predict the % relaxation at the design life of the spring.

Relaxation in service can be virtually eliminated by 100% heat setting the springs. Heat setting involves holding the spring at a high stress at an elevated temperature and causing the spring to undergo all the relaxation it would be expected to see over it's lifetime. We would coil the springs longer, allowing for the heat setting operation. After heat set, the loads would be at the required specification, and would stay there for the life of the part. The only downside to heat setting is the additional cost. Contact Rockford Spring Company for more information.

The examples below show some data from the kind of charts Rockford Spring Company has available, and the differences in spring relaxation performance between different types of spring materials. Contact Rockford Spring Company for your application.


Music 200 deg F 72 hrs 5% relaxation at 99,000 PSI
CR-SI 200 deg F 72 hrs 5% relaxation at 135,000 PSI
17-7SS 550 deg F 72 hrs 5% relaxation at 175,000 PSI




Music 200 deg F 10,000 hrs 5% relaxation at 76,000 PSI
CR-SI 200 deg F 10,000 hrs 5% relaxation at 117,000 PSI
17-7SS 500 deg F 10,000 hrs 5% relaxation at 160,000 PSI
 
Railsplitter said:
As long as only one end of the spring is stressed I don't think there is any risk of damage.

Partially opened cam tang blades that ride on the same spring is where the danger lies.
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That's always been my assumption, based on my limited knowledge of the subject.

And good info, Jerry.
 
jerryd6818 said:
…Relaxation is different than ordinary set. A highly stressed spring will set the first several times it is pressed, but within 5 to 10 cycles it has set as much as it is going to set…
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There's the rub, when blades are stored open with springs stressed they eventually set that way so when they're closed the springs don't have same tension there by resulting in weak spring, loss of walk and without walk, no talk.

Bear in mind that when the sounds are hear treated they actually are like a guitar string they're kinda tuned, that's what gives it such a sweet sounding click when opened and closed.

I have an old case that has such weak springs when it gets past the half way open point the blades basically become a fiction folder and a bad one at that.

I can't believe that 50 years ago, someone let that it the door with backsprings like that, it's more realistic to believe someone does the knife in half stressed position.
 
Peregrin said:
Good video but I don't see any reference to having more than one blade open at a time?
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Well in the video the guy talks about how he "starts with the highest blade on the knife first" implying that more than one blade will be open at a time.

He has 3 open at the same time in the video as well...
 
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