Increasing pivots makes a stronger folder?

[Iole]

If Spyderco doubled or tripled the size of their pivot pins on their folders, would the strength also be increased accordingly?

Looking at my newest Endura. I see the pivot is about 3/16" across.

[npueppke]

Yes, assuming that the pivot is the weakest part of the whole pivot system. In a cutting motion, there will be forces primarily on the pivot pin and the stop pin (or lock back or compression lock or whatever). If the pivot pin is weaker than the stop pin or the strength of the blade itself, then yes, increasing its size will increase the strength of the pivot. The strength of screws/bolts/pins is directly proportional to their area and the material's intrinsic strength.

[Evil D]

There's a thousand variables that go into this. If you take a given knife design and just make the pin bigger, you're also making the tang around the pin smaller so your pivot might be stronger but the blade gets weaker. The entire design has to change together in order to benefit from it. If anything you would see a decrease in side to side blade play.

[npueppke]

True I forgot about the tang being smaller, thats a good point too.

[Ed Schempp]

Using the same material, the same threads per inch, larger is stronger, it's math. But the need would only apply if the pivots were first to fail, and that the knife was not breaking at a respectable strength.

Spyderco does a lot of destructive testing on their designs, and they know where their designs fail. I believe that if they had failing pivot bolts they would get better ones, maybe larger, maybe stronger steel, maybe more threads per inch. Same can be said for all the structural parts of the knife. Spyderco continually evolves products, for example, D4, E4, etc...

Increasing the cost on already some of the strongest, most reliable knives in the industry would depend on the amount of improvement in the product. It is about value...Take Care...Ed