Xm-18 tri-way pivot preference? Also: do you bother with loctite?

Your preferred tri-way setup?

  • Teflon washers

    Votes: 6 14.0%

  • Phosphor bronze washers

    Votes: 15 34.9%

  • Ball bearings

    Votes: 22 51.2%
  • Total voters
    43
Invest in a really good driver set like Wiha. I use a piece of double ply paper towel and cover the screw first before I penetrate the screw hole with my bit:)
The paper takes out any slop between the bit and the hole, lessening the chance of it stripping. At the same time it protects the screw face from tooling scratches :thumbsup:
 
Feca10ne said:
Invest in a really good driver set like Wiha. I use a piece of double ply paper towel and cover the screw first before I penetrate the screw hole with my bit:)
The paper takes out any slop between the bit and the hole, lessening the chance of it stripping. At the same time it protects the screw face from tooling scratches :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
I got wihas. Fit between wrench and screwhead is good.
Problem was my foolish self decided "oh let me give it just an eensy weesy littleee....."
***SNAP!***

However, whoever the heck messed with my $600 Rainmaker should read your advice if they're going to make a living off knives
 
A piece of plastic grocery bag works pretty good too. Hope your day gets better!
Purple loctite is your friend:D
I feel your pain, been there.:mad:
 
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I vote bearings on triway, but i do like PB on older gen 4 as they are pretty buttery smooth. I applied loctite as when i reassemble the knife together, the blade tends to be off center with a slight rotation. Once perfectly centered, loctite prevents like said off centering. I like the blue stick loctite... no mess.
 
It's strange to hear these problems given my personal experience. It just goes to show that there are tolerances to contend with and differences among like production knives.

My XM-18 3.5" is a non-flipper that may make my experience different. Centering is not an issue with bearings or the PB washers. As I mentioned before, I am surprised that with all the production tolerances involved that I can get the pivot tight enough to eliminate blade play while still opening fine. I've had it apart more than a few times and it's the same.

Maybe my knife is special, it being a non-flipper matters or my sensitivity to these things is different than others. Truth is, I only have one sample to evaluate so my experience doesn't amount to much.

Thankfully, the steel hardware has not been a problem for me.

Although I'm not a fan in particular of Hinderer knives, I do want to get a flipper XM-18 or XM-24 to complete my collection.
 
I must be very lucky I have several Gen 6s and all are great out of the box ... detent was great, not difficult at all but enough they fire out, they flip just as I would want. I have tried both sets of washers in 3 of them and they were all good that way, not quite as smooth as on bearings but I imagine they would break in just fine. And I have never broken or even thought I was going to break or strip any screws and I have changed out a lot of hardware.

I have a handful of earlier Gen XM-18s and out of those one is close to as good as the Gen 6s flipping action, but the 3 other flippers need some wrist or you need to load up on the tab a bit to flip open fully.

I use most of my XM-18s and I have had no blade play or issues of any kind with them whatever Gen they are. Now some will probably try to say I'm a fanboy ... truth be told I prefer a Sebenza and a non flipper, but I do enjoy my Hinderers also and think the Gen 6s are dialed in really well.
 
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