Why doesn't Spyderco use liners?

D

DGG

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May 3, 2005
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Many of my Spydies are nothing more than a blade and a couple of slabs of handle material without the liners found on other manufacturer's folders.

Why?

Because they have a very simple manufacturing process? Thoughts?
 
i am not by any means an expert, but I would say that they use that design simply because it works:D
 
If the handle material is stiff/tough enough, then the liner is not necessary if it isn't a particularly hard-use knife.

For instance, I have a Military (clipped to my pajamas right now) that I use at home and while jogging. I appreciate its lightness, made possible largely by no liners (other than the nested one for the lock). However, it does seem like a tough knife.

I also have a Chinook II and a Manix. Very tough, substantial knives that I enjoy having, and really enjoying listening to when I close them. However, they've just a bit too much weight to flop around against one's leg while out jogging. No problem in blue jeans.
 
Many manufacturers now make use of this construction for their inexpenive folders.

Does it cause you a problem?

I think many many people assume a knife has to be .5 pound, they assume if it doesn't way .5 pound then it's not strong.
 
It is an often debated issue. The liners add strength, weight and cost. Some models, Spyderco liked to keep as simple and light as possible, while others are made for maximum strength. Sal has asked at least twice since I frequent the forums about input for this and I assume it is partly because of this input that the new Delica and Endura will have steel liners.

Personally, I don't need the liners. They add to the lock strength of the knife because they delay the pull out of the pins through the FRN, but since even an FRN knife like the Caly Jr has a lock stength of around 100 pounds/in that is more than good enough for me, for such a knife.
 
I want the added regidity of steel liners. But my main spyderco has them.

Even if I don't need them, I want them. And if I'm paying 100ish, I'm going to get everything I want.
 
I think Mr Glesser used the concept of stripping away all that is superfluous - much like designing an ultralight race car. Spyderco sure succeeded in making their FRN models tough as nails without having to add steel liners - and, as mentioned, offer plenty of alternatives if steel-liners are a must-have.
Personally, I love the minalist FRNs and haven't succeeded in breaking any of mine yet.
 
Most of the folders like that from Spyderco are the 'users' bought by people that just want a sharp knife that keeps and edge and cuts witht the best out there but without carrying the hefty price tag usually associated with a premium blade steel. The truth is Spyderco makes both. If you want one with metal liners in the pivot get a Para-Military or Veile folder, or even one of the ATRs from them.
 
So the reasons that Spyderco doesn't use liners are:

1. Cheaper to manufacture them so they can sell them for less to the ultimate consumer. And...

2. Better engineering doesn't require them (even though some of the models do have them).

Do other manufacturers use the same methods of construction eliminating the use of a liner?

I'm not unhappy with my Spyderco's sans liner, just curious.
 
I prefer my knives to have dual steel liners that run the length of the handle. I find it makes the knife feel much more solid and improves the action, reduces blade play, etc.

My Lonewolf T-2 with cocobolo wood handles has titanium liners and titanium hardware and it makes for a very light knife for the size of the knife. Maybe titanium would be an option for Spyderco to put in some of their light weight knives, but it would obviously raise the price.
price.
 
A.G.Russell has been making them for a while and Ka-Bar's very successful Dozier Hunters are so much like Spydercos you could mistake them for them. I bet the Emerson Hard Wear knives are linerless also.

Then there's the CRKT KISS series -- they're missing a whole side! :D

Wait a minute ... my Sebenzas don't have liners. Strangely enough, my Kershaw Talon has titanium slabs AND steel liners.
 
I wonder which company had liner-less lockback models first? They have been around a long long, perhaps twenty years.

AG Russell, Gerber, Timerline, KaBar, Schrade, etc. have all had lightweight lockbacks without liners.

Could the BuckLite have been the first?

-Bob
 
Esav Benyamin said:
Wait a minute ... my Sebenzas don't have liners. Strangely enough, my Kershaw Talon has titanium slabs AND steel liners.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't compare a Sebenza with thick titanium slabs to a FRN handled Spyderco with no liners. :) Obviously the titanium on the Sebenza is much more solid and much stronger than the FRN handles so no liners are needed. Maybe if the titanium scales were very thin they would benefit from some hard steel liners.
 
For functional strength full length solid liners are a serious overkill. When you are using a knife the stresses are highest around the pivot, the locking mechanism, and where the blade enters the handle. If you build sufficient strength in those parts of the handle you can get by with progressively lower strength as you move away from those areas. You get a sense of this by looking at modern skeletonized metal handles. In custom sheath knives you often find tapered tang thickness taking advantage of those design constraints.

In a carefully designed knife you will typically find something to reinforce the area around the pivot and extra support provided for the lock. If tough composites are used for the handle this is enough to get the job done and it allows great weight reduction. It is amazing when you compare the weight of a knife like a Spyderco Terzoula Starmate to a metal framed knife of similar size. The Starmate is so much more convenient to carry.

There are non-functional stresses that can damage a knife that may incline you to prefer full liners. The main one that I can think of is dropping the knife from a serious height onto a cement floor. That can break the handle somewhere other than at the pivot or lock. Metals can really help reduce handle fracture and/or hold a handle together in case of hard impacts. In my mispent youth I broke plenty of knives by throwing them. You would have a high risk of breaking a linerless resin-based handle if you threw it.
 
For what it is worth, I handled a delica not too long ago. It was a friends knife. That knife has been beat to death and still works hard. I think that if you can make a knife like the delica with no liners then do it. That is a hard working knife.
 
If you read the knife catalog on Spyderco's site, you'll see one theme come up again and again: they try hard to keep their knives light and thin.

For example with the Paramilitary:

Nested into the G-10 scale is a top-seated Heavy duty rated Compression Lock. By inlaying (nesting) the lock we increase its strength without adding thick and bulky liners.
Click to expand...
 
I don't see it as negative at all. I don't see at as a product of a "simple manufacturing process." You can get any kind of knife you want... you can get a super beefy folder that's an inch thick with massive SS liners and a lockup like a bank vault. I see Spydercos as a refined design suited to a particular task. Take the military, for example. I've used and carried mine quite a bit, and reaped the benefits of the single nested Ti liner in the form of the thinness and lightness of the knife, the ease of carry. With the opening hole you've quickly presented a large, emminently usable flat-ground blade that is locked to the handle in a secure manner utilizing the strengths of the materials employed. The system is built on the assumption that the stresses you might place on it would be from a cutting position, without lateral stresses. It is, in my opinion, the ideally constructed folder. No excess.:thumbup:
 
With durable man-made materials, liners simply aren't needed in many knife designs.

Add SOG, Meyerco, Camillus, and Case to the list of knife companies with liner-less folders. Not to mention the el crappos - Frost/United/Fury.

Regarding who made the first liner-less lockback, AG Russell says his Brute knife was the first, and production began in the 1970s.
http://www.agrussell.com/knives/by_...ives/folding_knives/a_g_russell_brute__1.html

Best Wishes,
Bob
 
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