Fixed the side to side play in my Para 2

[Evil D]

*DISCLAIMER*
Taking your knife apart will VOID YOUR WARRANTY with Spyderco so unless you A) don't care, B) have already taken the knife apart anyway, and C) are mechanically inclined enough to understand what you're doing, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS.


Cliff Notes: Take your knife apart, file down the ends of the stop pin, reassemble and your blade play will be gone.



Today I got a little nostalgic for my 20CP Para 2, because I've had a lot of knives since this one and haven't carried it for a while. I got it out and touched up the edge (soooo sharp) and came back around to the one nagging issue with this knife that has plagued me since first buying it...side to side blade play. I read that all of this sprint supposedly suffered from it, but out of the box this knife was solid as a rock. Like the other 2 versions of the Para 2 that I've owned however, this one developed a slight side to side wiggle after about a month of EDC. It wasn't so bad that you could feel it in use, it didn't actually "jiggle" but if you know what you're feeling for you could feel it in the pivot. Anyway, I decided to take things into my own hands and fix it today.

So, long story short (I didn't take pics...it was too tedious and too simple to bother with), I simply took the knife apart and *slowly* sanded down the ends of the STOP PIN. I did eventually take a tiny bit off the sides of the bushing as well, before it occurred to me that the problem is with the stop pin being too long and preventing the bushing from tightening down onto the blade firm enough to eliminate play.

So, I took it apart, and used a 400 grit diamond stone to "file" the ends of the stop pin down...very small amounts at a time, and then put the knife back together to check progress, then repeat as necessary until I was able to eliminate side to side play. I got it to the point where I could apply enough pressure with the pivot screws that the blade wouldn't fall shut by gravity anymore, then I knew I had done enough. A drop of Locktite and adjusted the pivot so it was snug but had no play, and it was good to go. It flicks open like a laser and drops closed with gravity (passes my "drop closed and cut phonebook paper test, if you've ever seen that) and has no side to side play anymore.

[mattman]

Good info, David, Thanks!

I always thought the majority of these occurances was likely caused by the "burr on the pivot", this is the first I've heard of your solution. Nice work.

[Evil D]

Good info, David, Thanks!

I always thought the majority of these occurances was likely caused by the "burr on the pivot", this is the first I've heard of your solution. Nice work.

They could be, or they could be because of the burr around the clip holes (which to Spyderco's credit is not present on my 20CP version, which is a sign that they've addressed the issue). I took this one apart and looked at everything, and there were no burrs and nothing out of the ordinary that looked like it could cause play, so I figured the only other reason could be that something was stopping the pivot from being able to tighten down enough. This knife in particular, the pivot screws are 100% tightened...so much so that I actually twisted the head of a torx bit trying to tighten it further, so I knew the only solution would be to narrow things down to allow the pivot to close further. Another solution would've been slightly thicker washers, but those are harder to come by.

[Holland]

Nice find! ill be sure to try this if any of mine develop play

[dsmegst]

I've noticed that on a few of the Para 2s I have benefited from tightening the stop pin further. I didn't think to shorten it though, well done.

[razorsharp]

Thats exactly how I fixed my blade play a several months back
:D

[Marvin]

Nice post above here.Thanks for sharing it