I don’t mind liner locks on affordable knives. And for general light duty cutting tasks, they’re also perfectly fine. However, you can find $250 knives with liner locks, and I was surprised at how little moderate-use it took for my Tenacious to develop vertical play. I don’t think a liner lock will outright fail in sensible tasks, but a knife with blade play feels really cheap.
I think the issues with liner locks are a bit overstated in the community. Most of the same criticisms for them could be levied against frame locks, which is probably the most prevalent form of lock on “high-end” knives in general. Unless it’s a Gas Station Special™️, most liner locks won’t fail during most tasks, even strenuous ones, that users put them through. Back locks are stronger than both liner locks and frame locks in most inane “torture tests” people have done, yet maligned by a lot of modern knife bros due to them being too “old”, so I think a lot of general criticisms I see on these “problems” are mostly born out of a lack of valid complaints, rather than a genuine drive to improve. The “stronger” locks out there are criticized for abstract reasons, the “weaker” locks are criticized for trumped-up hypothetical reasons About the only locks I see fail regularly enough that I personally don’t like them are plunge/button locks, but again, most that aren’t Gas Station Specials™️ won’t be obliterated unless you’re deliberately trying to obliterate it I think most knife bros would do well to just carry fixed blades with the way even the most-reliable folding knives/their locks cause them to over-analyze less than 1% of lock failures
Hoping somebody can help me out here on making the liner lock bar a little easier to move. I've got 6 or 7 liner locks, and a couple of them are very difficult to move, and it's clear that they're not stuck, there is just very little give in the bar itself. One very small Artisan knife I have, it seems pretty clearly the result of the bar being very short. Is grinding a channel for lack of a better term into the blade-side in order to slightly weaken the bar the right solution? I see that some of my knives were manufactured with that solution. I'm pretty surprised I haven't been able to find much on correcting this. For what it's worth, if I were to proceed without further guidance, it seems like those grooves are in a wide U shape, where the U occupies 2/3rds, or 4/5's of the width of the bar, and maybe 1/3rd the depth of the bar. Obviously the further away from the blade connection, the more it will weaken the bar. I'm hoping there is an easier solution, other than somebody telling me not to buy a liner lock. I am well aware these are not remotely top of the line knives. I just started buying them, and playing with tuning the action is about as far as I've gotten. Any help is much appreciated!
What are your thoughts on Cold Steel’s Triad vs Atlas? The new Mayhem has the Atlas, wondering why they went in that direction. The Triad on the Recon 1 and Espada Large are awesome IMO.
I have a video on that actually. Basically the Tri-Ad I argue is more shock-resistant despite the Atlas allegedly being capable of withstanding more weight, but the Atlas is just a more convenient and much faster mechanism for operation. I'm glad CS used the Atlas on their Mayhem because they already made plenty of massive folders that utilize the Tri-Ad. I'm excited to try it out soon!
The Atlas is cool, but I think the marketing of it being “stronger” than the Tri-Ad lock is a bit misleading, because it’s only stronger in certain controlled testing conditions that don’t have any variables, such as real-life tests of lock strength. On top of the Atlas mechanism having more parts/parts that will actually eventually wear out and need to be replaced, I find the Tri-Ad lock to still be superior due to its superior practical strength and simplicity. The Atlas is cool and strong in its own right, but it’s not the Tri-Ad killer that the marketing seemed to pretend it was
I don’t mind liner locks on affordable knives. And for general light duty cutting tasks, they’re also perfectly fine. However, you can find $250 knives with liner locks, and I was surprised at how little moderate-use it took for my Tenacious to develop vertical play. I don’t think a liner lock will outright fail in sensible tasks, but a knife with blade play feels really cheap.
As a lefty I can use liner locks and frame locks but I definitely do not like them.
I think the issues with liner locks are a bit overstated in the community. Most of the same criticisms for them could be levied against frame locks, which is probably the most prevalent form of lock on “high-end” knives in general. Unless it’s a Gas Station Special™️, most liner locks won’t fail during most tasks, even strenuous ones, that users put them through. Back locks are stronger than both liner locks and frame locks in most inane “torture tests” people have done, yet maligned by a lot of modern knife bros due to them being too “old”, so I think a lot of general criticisms I see on these “problems” are mostly born out of a lack of valid complaints, rather than a genuine drive to improve. The “stronger” locks out there are criticized for abstract reasons, the “weaker” locks are criticized for trumped-up hypothetical reasons
About the only locks I see fail regularly enough that I personally don’t like them are plunge/button locks, but again, most that aren’t Gas Station Specials™️ won’t be obliterated unless you’re deliberately trying to obliterate it
I think most knife bros would do well to just carry fixed blades with the way even the most-reliable folding knives/their locks cause them to over-analyze less than 1% of lock failures
I like that "6 dollar axis lock knife" 😊
Anyway, another great review. You've got yourself another sub👍🏻
Lefties like myself use our left index finger to disengage, and push down with the thumb until blade closes. Not a problem.
Hoping somebody can help me out here on making the liner lock bar a little easier to move. I've got 6 or 7 liner locks, and a couple of them are very difficult to move, and it's clear that they're not stuck, there is just very little give in the bar itself. One very small Artisan knife I have, it seems pretty clearly the result of the bar being very short. Is grinding a channel for lack of a better term into the blade-side in order to slightly weaken the bar the right solution? I see that some of my knives were manufactured with that solution. I'm pretty surprised I haven't been able to find much on correcting this.
For what it's worth, if I were to proceed without further guidance, it seems like those grooves are in a wide U shape, where the U occupies 2/3rds, or 4/5's of the width of the bar, and maybe 1/3rd the depth of the bar. Obviously the further away from the blade connection, the more it will weaken the bar.
I'm hoping there is an easier solution, other than somebody telling me not to buy a liner lock. I am well aware these are not remotely top of the line knives. I just started buying them, and playing with tuning the action is about as far as I've gotten. Any help is much appreciated!
What are your thoughts on Cold Steel’s Triad vs Atlas? The new Mayhem has the Atlas, wondering why they went in that direction. The Triad on the Recon 1 and Espada Large are awesome IMO.
I have a video on that actually. Basically the Tri-Ad I argue is more shock-resistant despite the Atlas allegedly being capable of withstanding more weight, but the Atlas is just a more convenient and much faster mechanism for operation.
I'm glad CS used the Atlas on their Mayhem because they already made plenty of massive folders that utilize the Tri-Ad. I'm excited to try it out soon!
Thanks, found it from 5 months ago, "Cold Steel Tri-Ad Vs. Atlas Lock". Good stuff! Now the Mayhem is on my list to add.@@MannixKnives
The Atlas is cool, but I think the marketing of it being “stronger” than the Tri-Ad lock is a bit misleading, because it’s only stronger in certain controlled testing conditions that don’t have any variables, such as real-life tests of lock strength. On top of the Atlas mechanism having more parts/parts that will actually eventually wear out and need to be replaced, I find the Tri-Ad lock to still be superior due to its superior practical strength and simplicity. The Atlas is cool and strong in its own right, but it’s not the Tri-Ad killer that the marketing seemed to pretend it was