Some questions for all you lucky new owners of the Para-Military.
How much effort to open the knife? I like the action on the Lil Temp' - firm detent in the closed position; small effort to move from the detent then consistent light drag all the way to the open/locked position. Is the Para-Millie the same?
Also - any vertical play at the tip when locked open?
Chris
Para Millie - questions for new owners
Hi Chris - The pivot on my Paramillie is actually pretty loose, in my opinion, but I mean that in a good way. By that, I mean that the knife does show enough of a detent that I would never worry about it staying closed, but the opening action feels very smooth with little resistance once you pass the "detent". The Military-size opening hole feels really big on this smaller blade, which I like. I think I know what you mean by "light drag"...as compared to my lockback knives, the Paramillie blade feels like it is "guided" along its opening arc as opposed to feeling like the blade is in "clutch mode" where it swings freely between the detented and locked positions. As a point of reference, it is extremely easy to do an inertial (flick of the wrist) type opening with this knife - I can easily do it in a sitting position with my elbow on the desk as I type this, which means that I don't have a lot of room to flick my wrist very hard. (The weight of the thick blade helps, I suppose.) By comparision, I would find it difficult to do the same with any of the various Spydie lockbacks that I have.
If I lock the Paramillie open, grasp the handle tightly with one hand and grasp the blade tip between my thumb and index finger (dangerous!) and pull vertically back and forth, I can feel a tiny bit of vertical play, enough where I can feel the blade kind of "rock" back and forth very lightly. This takes a fair amount of force, though, and I can't really notice it while cutting, for instance if I press the tip into some very thick cardboard or plastic. Peering inside the spine of the knife at the lock, I can confidently say that there's NO WAY that little piece of metal wedged between the tang and stop pin is going anywhere unless I release it. I really like the compression lock. Side-to-side play seems to be zero.
Hope this helps!
Edited by - timlara on 4/5/2004 7:52:48 AM
BTW - the ball locks on my Dodos seem to be the only locks on any of my Spydies which show absolutely NO vertical play of this sort. My guess is that with almost every other type of lock, a teeny pit of play might be a necessity to make the lock easy enough to disengage without having enough play to let it slip...
(Sal or anyone else who knows, please correct me if I'm wrong!)
Edited by - timlara on 4/5/2004 8:12:17 AM
If I lock the Paramillie open, grasp the handle tightly with one hand and grasp the blade tip between my thumb and index finger (dangerous!) and pull vertically back and forth, I can feel a tiny bit of vertical play, enough where I can feel the blade kind of "rock" back and forth very lightly. This takes a fair amount of force, though, and I can't really notice it while cutting, for instance if I press the tip into some very thick cardboard or plastic. Peering inside the spine of the knife at the lock, I can confidently say that there's NO WAY that little piece of metal wedged between the tang and stop pin is going anywhere unless I release it. I really like the compression lock. Side-to-side play seems to be zero.
Hope this helps!
Edited by - timlara on 4/5/2004 7:52:48 AM
BTW - the ball locks on my Dodos seem to be the only locks on any of my Spydies which show absolutely NO vertical play of this sort. My guess is that with almost every other type of lock, a teeny pit of play might be a necessity to make the lock easy enough to disengage without having enough play to let it slip...
(Sal or anyone else who knows, please correct me if I'm wrong!)
Edited by - timlara on 4/5/2004 8:12:17 AM