To those of you who beat the snot out of your salt knives: how’s your action?

[vivi]

These have been used a little :)

[spoonrobot]

I used the crap out of my Atlantics and Pacifics for almost a decade and never really had an issue with the lock interface fouling. This included a stint as a construction worker assisting concrete and cement laborers. Worst I ever had was when I carried the knife but never actually opened it for like 6 months and had to blow the built up lint out of the lockbar pocket. Hazards of an office worker :rolleyes:

They're very good knives and I think LC200N & FFG will be a improvement, although I never had much issue with H1 edge holding. Stayed sharp enough until I could get to a stone, which was quite often.

[JuPaul]

Git'em dirty!

Yep. :D

[VooDooChild]

Action has been fine on all of mine.

[Pancake]

Little up and down play, but no side to side play.if there is side to side play, that is a sign of a loose pivot screw.

[Evil D]

Title says it all, how’s your salt‘s action?

Let me back up. I use a manix lw at work currently. And the action gets mucked up pretty quick, not bad enough to seriously impair closing or opening. But bad enough that I may as well go back to a seki backlock like I was using before, since they take the same effort to open and close now.

Soooo the new lc200n pac salt seems like a good chance to do that. My old delica wharny also got fairly mucked up but it never really changed my closing and opening speed. I know the construction on the salt knives is a bit different though, soooooooooooooooooooooooo. Tell me your experiences!

So are you getting crud in the pivot? At your work, would you have the opportunity to rinse the pivot out from time to time? Would an open back construction knife like the Caribbean be easier to rinse out than a back lock?

One thing I've found to really help with keeping crud out of my pivots is bearing grease in the pivot. It creates a physical barrier around the pivot that prevents lint and dirt from getting all the way into the pivot area. This works great at least for pocket lint and such, I don't work around sand so I'm not sure how well grease will help you there (maybe I need to test that).

You can see in these pics, there's a circle where the washer would be that's clean of debris, but the area around the washer where the grease squeezes out collects all the crud before it makes its way into the pivot.

[spyderHS08]

Pretty smooth, I’ve got an original salt one old school, actually reprofiled it cuz I got bored and it’s still smooth as ever. Granted it’s a pinned version where as the new are screwed constriction

How did you manage the blade swap on that Pac Salt??? I wanted to do the same, but felt like I'd break everything getting it out of the front end of the scales. Not to mention getting it back together...Finally I just got two of the new Pac Salt 2s and swapped those blades instead.

Later model salt 1 and Pac salt had a screw pivot. Early gen were completely pinned like the old delica and endura, so I just managed to find two of the ones with a pivot screw and it was super easy. I also put an h1 blade on that orange dragonfly. Blade swaps are super simple on frn models (not pinned). But G10 with the lanyard tube can be a bit more tricky!

[Surfingringo]

I beat my Salt knives mercilessly and they get all kinds of blood and goo in the pivots on a daily basis. I rarely give them more than a quick rinse with the hose and sometimes they don’t get even that much. Every now and then the pivot on my Siren will get stiff with gunk and instead of free falling when I depress the lock bar will require a bit of wrist flick to close. All I do is give it a warm soapy rinse under hot water and it’s back to normal. If there is more persistent debris in there I will loosen the pivot a half turn to create more space and repeat the rinse while working the lock. Every Salt knife I own is still as slick as when new with nothing more than that.

[T-1000]

I carry mine to work at the plant and it gets exposed to every weather element you can think of, as well as hours of sweat, oil and grime in the pivot, you name it. Action is drop shut smooth and lockup is the best on any lock back spyderco I have ever had. Zero play after constant use.