Why do Some Many Custom Makers Use liner Locking Mechanisms?

[ddd]

Here is a picture of one of Michael Walker's PROTOTYPES for the
Liner Lock. From The collection of Wolf Shultz (Germany)

"Experimental Liner Lock", 1983
This early experimental liner lock is the first integral style liner lock
(frame lock). It was also the first knife with a tiny steel ball in the liner
to prevent the blade from opening accidentally.
This folder passed a lock breaking pressure test of 30 foot/pounds.
The blade has a welded cutting edge and the body is made of titanium.
Overall Length 6" (152 mm).

All the best,
David Darom (ddd)

From my book: "The Great Collections"

 

[Jon Brand]

Its cool to see that early model.

 

[STR]

Thanks for sharing that. Its a wonderful piece of memorabilia. Notice the built in choil Michael incorporated into that design?? It was a great idea then and its a great idea now for allowing the index finger to position in front of the blade. If the lock did give its going to be hard for that blade to flip round and bite you with your index blocking the path like that. Simply brilliant!

STR

 

[Lorien]

There are a couple of things I don't like about liner and frame locks;

1. The little detente ball bearing wears out and sometimes wears its seat, making the closed position less than totally positive. Equally important to strong lock up is strong close up. A knife that does not stay dependable closed is not dependable. Over tightening the pivot is a lame way to have to deal with this problem.

2. Because force is exerted laterally to the pivot, the bushings wear unevenly. This is especially problematic when the pivot o.d is under spec'ed. Chris Reeve solves the problem by having a secondary pivot sleeve which increases the o.d by a large margin.

3. Your finger must at some point cross the path of a closing, moving blade. Ok, so that's three things.

I think the most ideal lock I've seen so far is the axis lock. When done correctly by a highly skilled custom knifemaker, I doubt it could be beat.

Has anyone seen much in the way of Axis Lock(tm) custom knives out there?