ZT 0200: Lock not making full contact vertically.

[longbow]

Mine appears to make full contact. I haven't ever had it apart to really see but looking at it from the side in the sunlight it appears that way more of the one I have makes contacts. Still only half the liner lock face but almost all the way up to the lock. I just mean that it has alot of room to wear in but the lock engages pretty much up and down the face. keepem sharp

 

[Macchina]

With the input of STR, and the reasoning he brings, I'm going to keep it and use it. It seems they are all made this way, it makes sense because this allows them to control how far away the third point of contact is. I researched Kershaw's CS, and don't think it will be a problem to send it in in the future if the lock does wear too fast (I don't expect it to). Thanks for your input.

 

[STR]

Mine appears to make full contact. I haven't ever had it apart to really see but looking at it from the side in the sunlight it appears that way more of the one I have makes contacts. Still only half the liner lock face but almost all the way up to the lock. I just mean that it has alot of room to wear in but the lock engages pretty much up and down the face. keepem sharp

I'm sure it only appears to because the tolerances are tighter as it extends up the blade contact. Sometimes the light has a harder time getting through on ones that are tighter or ones both tighter with sharper pitch angles on the blade contact but most will still have a gap there in the top and middle of the lock width albeit minute enough to look full. Like I said its very difficult to make a contact that abraids fully and does so evenly, especially in mass production. You end up with some closer than others and you end up with some gapped a bit and you end up with some that have too much contact in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones and so on. This is why its a good idea to keep the lock that was fitted to the blade in the body unless another was made specifically for that same blade. You can do this with about any production folder and see that even though its the same model made in the same year that some hand fitting and adjustment must have been done.

I had a customer send me a green original SARK by Emerson a while back with instructions that he wanted his black P-SARK blade taken out and put in the green body. Of course doing that is a bad idea in most cases although it has been done and successfully. But I swapped scales out and the locks assigned to the blades were still on the same blades. Out of curiousity though, I took the blades of each and swapped them to the opposite locks just to prove a point for him. He saw as I did that one lock barely connected and the other one crossed the tang completely on a brand new knife. Of course this is a higher dollar example of a better knife compared to some and one I expect some hand tuning to be done on that I'm talking about but many lower priced folders still have a checker that goes over them to 'fine tune' them on the their way out the back door. At least thats what I've been told. It does not mean you cannot take a folder apart and put parts from one on the other and make them work. It sure can be done and likely it has been done. All I'm saying is its not really recommended.

STR

 

[A.P.F.]

Ive heard someone say.. two contact points are good .. And others say one...?
I think once it wears in.. It will sit more flush and tighter over time..?

What Trimcut said. I just finished checking over some Spyderco and Kershaw knives. Of the lot, only the SG2 Ti JYD II was completely flush. As some of the most dependable liner-locks I own did not have full contact, I can only conclude that the issue is not really significant.

 

[Joshua J.]

I had the same reaction with the Spyderco Military. I have three of those, two of them contact just at the point, my CPM D-2 Military is flush from the point to about 1/3 of the way down.
Kershaw seems to get their lock faces lined up flush a lot of the time, which is the way I prefer it, but from all the use on my S90V Military I can say that it's not a problem just contacting at the point.

I guess if you think about it, the blade is applying pressure to the lockbar along the rotational axis of the pivot, so the outer most point is going to be the most effective regardless.