Spyderco Forums

this thing is awesome I have been wanting one for some time and I finally got ahold of one.

my only concern is how long will the compression lock last? will it eventually wear to the point were is is unusable?

I have had liner and farm locks that wore in over the years but... I love this thing and I wanna have it for quite some time.

I realize I am probably being OCD, but it just seems to lock up about 50% across the ramp brand new.

I've had mine a couple of years and it's the same as when i got it. Don't worry about it, it's a fantastic knife and made from great materials, it will last a lifetime with proper care.

Chillax, enjoy your knife and don't worry about it :D

I've had my Para for a few years now and the lock wears very slowly compared to a liner lock. Don't think you'll have an issue with it wearing down unless you open and close it a lot.

Hard inertial openings and spine whacking will both cause the lock to wear faster. The good news is, the compression lock will do the job of preventing inadvertent blade closing even when it is worn and battered to the point where it travels all the way across and has a lot of vertical play. It is a very reliable lock. Treat your Para like the precision crafted cutting tool it is and it will last for decades. Treat it like a hammer/axe/screwdriver/crowbar and it might not last out the weekend. It's fate is in your hands.

yablanowitz wrote:Hard inertial openings and spine whacking will both cause the lock to wear faster. The good news is, the compression lock will do the job of preventing inadvertent blade closing even when it is worn and battered to the point where it travels all the way across and has a lot of vertical play. It is a very reliable lock. Treat your Para like the precision crafted cutting tool it is and it will last for decades. Treat it like a hammer/axe/screwdriver/crowbar and it might not last out the weekend. It's fate is in your hands.

This, exactly. Yablanowitz said it better than I could have. I use mine as my everyday work knife and the lock is essentially unchanged in two years of construction use. I don't abuse it, but I use it constantly.

Steel on steel lockup. Barring real abuse (see posts above) it will probably outlast you.

oh i don't abuse tools anymore than I have too. I have never spine whacked a knife and never interned too. but i do put them up through some hard cutting tasks sometimes and I want to keep this one around for some time... not that the Para 2 model is going anywhere so worse case scenario I get myself a back up down the road.

Not to mention, if you ever *DO* have a problem (which is not caused by abuse), you can rest assured that Spyderco has some of the best warranty support in the business and they will definitely take care of you. That said, I personally don't see how the lock could ever wear out under normal use. I think you would literally have to open/close it all day, 24x7 on some kind of machine for a really long time for it to ever "naturally" wear to the point of failure. And again, that would definitely not be "normal use"!

wmcilvain wrote:oh i don't abuse tools anymore than I have too. I have never spine whacked a knife and never interned too. but i do put them up through some hard cutting tasks sometimes and I want to keep this one around for some time... not that the Para 2 model is going anywhere so worse case scenario I get myself a back up down the road.

As I said, it's steel on steel lockup. It's very, very durable.

kinda off topic when you lubricate your knife (i use mineral oil since i use all of them for food quite often) would that reduce wear since it could "slide" into place a little easier?

and I never figured it is too pieces of hardened steel making contact which with other objects takes forever to wear down.

I keep my compression locks' locking surfaces dry. I figure there's not a whole lot of surface-to-surface friction and they'll wear less if they don't have any lube on them to hold grit, even if it's micro-grit. But that's just a theory...