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An afternoon's play with the Kershaw Reverb

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My Reverb came today and I was surprised by all the things I liked about it for a $20 knife. But it has a horrible action, and that's really down to a couple purposeful design elements. The first is that the stop pin is so close to the pivot point that there's not much room for a washer -- less than standard washers will allow, in fact. And the second is the frame lock is very heavy on the tang, and flipping wise it's a bit of a lead balloon, with a lot of drag on the action. So I decided to dive into it.
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Not a ton to it, which I like. And lo and behold, causes for the poor action quickly emerged.
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As you can see, the washers have been chewed up. I thought the stop pin was rubbing -- the stop pin is fine, it's the detent ball. Before sanding
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(See the circle worn in the metal? That's from the ball bearing embedded in the detent, grinding against the steel.) After sanding, the works was a little smoother.
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None of the standard washers I have would fit this pivot with the stop pin right there, and any that would fit would be so thin that they'd be providing questionable support to the pivot, and would be prone to quickly crush and fail under pressure. So no perfect solution existed and I decided to see if a little phosphor bronze and some filework would suffice as a replacement. Phosphor bronze wears in over time and becomes smoother with use, but is strong enough to resist crush pressure, because when the washers start deforming, that introduces a lot of side to side wobble in folding knife blades. The washers would be too thick to spin, they'd have to be notched to fit against the stop pin, which would kind of lock them in place and hence lose some of their value as washers, but what the hell -- I wasn't putting the chewed up nylon things back on, so onward it was. Fifteen minutes later:
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Almost, but not quite, as if I knew what I were doing! The knife went back together as simple as you please, which is a good thing.
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And there are the bronze washers in the knife. They look to be settling into their new home. The net result? Well, it's still not a flipper, but it's a lot smoother than it was, and the knife will stand up to a little heavier of use now. If you look at it like that, it's kinda not that big of a deal, but I entertained myself for a few hours getting to know this thing, and I made it a little bit better in the process. That's a lazy Saturday afternoon gone just fine, by my standards. :)
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bjnmnhllnbck
0
Sep 29, 2019
Nice guide! I was on the fence about picking on of these up - and didn't. Very cool to see what it's made of - not* so sad to see I wasn't missing out on anything, but I love how you made it your own. Adding brass washers doubled the value of the knife, no doubt! I wonder if there is a super small market for that - for people who gotta have their cheaper folders but desire a smoother action/better materials... What do you think? I see people buying scales that are 1 - 2x's as much the original cost for their liner lock knifes... I'm rambling, again, cool guide, love what you did!
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Sep 30, 2019
bjnmnhllnbckI was kind of surprised to learn that you can't find a lot of stuff like this online. I expected there to be a thriving aftermarket and really there is at best a grudging one. Most places I've found have 1/8 and 3/16ths inch bore washers of varying thickness. No one over here measures washers in metric, which is an issue with a lot of knives coming out of China that have pivots measured in mm. I'd love to discover a reasonable source of washers in a much wider range of dimensions than is currently available in the US, at least to me. I can't think of too many ways someone could do a better job of keeping me busy than opening one of these places nearby or online. It seems like if you want some weird size of washer, your choices are to buy a run of like 5000 of them from a manufacturer, or to go on living in want.
reswright
3850
Aug 11, 2019
I've had this for a bit now. It doesn't get a ton of use but I do get it out now and then. And frankly I was hoping that with a bit more wear the washers would break in a little bit. That hasn't happened and I've always kind of had it in the back of my mind that I wasn't completely happy with the notched PB washers I'd put on this knife to replace the torn nylon washers. After a while of not being happy I decided to see if I could fix the issue more to my liking. I tried fitting in some small teflon washers, but it didn't work -- they were the wrong thickness and were rubbing on the stop pin anyway. But despite picking up a few aftermarket washers I still didn't have a set that would fit this knife, with the stop pin so close to the pivot. So really there was nothing else to be done for it -- either I could leave it alone, or I could take a set of 5/32nds PB and file them down the whole way around, so the washers could rotate with the blade as it deploys, reducing friction. Did I mention that I'd have to do that by hand and that it's probably way too much work for this little knife? Because I would have to do it by hand and it's a ridiculous amount of work for the payoff. So naturally that's what I did. After two days spent on and off hand filing down the full size washers -- not two days straight, but two days of spending fifteen minutes here, half an hour there, putting it down when it got annoying and picking it back up when I was bored, this is what I had:
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If you look carefully you can see some irregularity. Just by way of comparison, here they are with one of the original washers I filed down for this knife:
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Did they fit?
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Yes! Here it is back together:
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Does it flip? Well, it's still not a flipper, but with quite a bit of wrist, I can now flip this blade open one handed in one motion. The weird mill work isn't great for thumbing the blade open but funnily enough it lets you pinch the blade with some real grip: in fact, if you just pick it up by the blade when it's closed, pinched between your finger and thumb, and give it the lightest flick, it opens the knife a thousand times easier than trying to flick it open while holding the handle. Was it worth a bunch of tedious file work? Kinda! It's cool knowing that I hand machined a part, two parts for this knife that have improved its action quite a bit. If you look at the amount of time I've spent dicking around with this $20 dinky little knife, just improving its opening a little bit isn't really all that impressive of a result -- but that's really not how I clock these things. Everything I know about knives, I know because once upon a time I decided to try something like this, and it either worked or it didn't. Because I figured out how to do this on a Reverb, one day I might be able to do it on something a lot harder to replace, and now I know I can do it, and how it actually works to do it. I know something more than I did before. And from where I stand, that's time well spent indeed.
Fleric
26
Jun 24, 2019
get a buck apex !! much better in every way and comes in cf!!!
reswright
3850
Jun 29, 2019
I think you mean SKBlades.com, right? SKknives is custom work based out in Bigfork, MT. Verra interesting work at SKBlades.
Fleric
26
Jun 30, 2019
reswrightyes ! that would be correct . also i have managed to get a lot of various bronze phosphor washers and replace the plastic one in a few knives , making the action so much better , not easy to grind or drill but worth the effort in the end , ebay has some and they will usually give you a much better price if you ask . just an fyi , very pleasant to be able to converse with a fellow knife collector btw !
Fleric
26
Jun 24, 2019
check out the buck apex ( think thats the name ) but it much better and comes in cf as well as bright aluminum colors , i have 4 of them . very good coin pocket knives !
reswright
3850
May 31, 2019
So when I was looking around the net I saw this Kubey knife, which prolly seems a little familiar to the readers of this thread:
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The Kubey KU-111. $12.99 from Jeff Bezos' posse. I ordered it, because i've been curious as to whether Kubey is one of SRM's brands. The main reason is that this isn't the first SRM knife I've seen with an identical looking but slightly cheaper Kubey version. The way I see it, there's four possibilities: Case A - one is a competitor's copy of the other. Yes, the Chinese clone each others' successful designs. Justice, people figure, right? We do this too of course - Coke v Pepsi, Ford v GM, Miller v Budweiser... we sometimes make fun of it but no one I know refuses to buy a Pepsi, or a Coke, just because whenever Pepsi or Coke comes out with something new, the other has their version of it out within a month. We know fashion knockoffs, too. Case B - both brands are owned by the same company and one is more prestigious or otherwise expensive than the other (Like Volkswagen and Bugatti). This happens a lot in the US and we're familiar with it and how it works. No need to spend too much time on it. Case C - both brands are owned by different companies and the knife is made by a third party. Less familiar to us but it still happens, mostly with the cheapest knives (although it's how WE Knife got good at knives.) Much more visible in the beer industry where one big brewery might be the same place a ton of microbrews with distinct marketing identities but zero manufacturing footprint actually get made. If you've ever actually worked in a factory, you know that that means the question is really "Out of everything that factory made, what did they sell to whom and what was properly made and what wasn't?" Because factories fuck up from time to time. That, you can bank on. Case D - The knife is made by one of the companies and the second company has bought some with their own logo on it. Which happens a lot more often in Chinese business than it does over here in our knife industry. Chinese business seems to have its own rules and once you consider how they do things, it doesn't seem so strange, but at first that just seems to Western eyes like something that shouldn't be allowed. They seem to make it work for their purposes tho. The upside? These knives may prove differ in certain ways like quality of build or materials, especially if one of the brands is looking to protect its brand, or the competitor just wants a cheap version. So which is it? A, B, C, or D? Well, here is the Kubey with the SRM and the Reverb just as a refresher:
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Below - Kubey and SRM. The SRM's on bottom - the o ring around the flipper knob is something I added to it before I realized I'd be taking a photograph like this. ;)
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Flip it open? Easy. A little tighter than the SRM but still pretty fast once you get the trick. That knob on the flipper can be pressed down to help disengage the detent and lockbar.
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Yeah, identical designs. OK, it's reasonable to dismiss Case A. These knives are clearly more than similar. So is one made of different materials? Doesn't look like it, at first. But if you look carefully at that backspacer, you can see a tiny chip with some brown rust in it.
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Different metal? or the same metal but from a lower quality batch of parts? or just random? No way to know, but it's suggestive that the QC was worse. Also, compare the brand marks. Doesn't Kubey look kinda like 'Bubey' in that font and at that size? Is it just sloppy coloring?
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Not sloppy then. Look at the SRM:
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That's a lot crisper, right? Suggests that the size of the area for 'logo space' was determined more around making sure SanRenMu could be visible, and maybe not so much around what a sort of gothic 'Kubey' might look like. Suggests much more time was spent on making SRM's logo look right than Kubey's. Suggests only, but still. So opening it up...
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That's a little different. No bushing holes on the brass? As a reminder this is how it looks on the SRM:
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On the Kubey:
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So phosphor bronze and brass, just not with the bushing holes. Those are expensive, believe it or not -- much much much easier to punch a washer out of a sheet than it is to punch precise holes in the washer. Probably why most people don't do it. Hella good tech tho. Simple and effective. Also note that the PB is maybe a tad rougher than the ones on the SRM. So what do we have here? We have dispensed with Case A -- separate manufacturers, one ripping off the other. The knives are identical in dimension. So is it B? Is Kubey a cheaper brand of SRM? Are they separate brands that both bought this knife from a third party (Case C)? Or are they separate companies and did SRM sell a knockoff of one of their models of knives at wholesale to Kubey to rebrand and resell (Case D)? Well, it's probably not B. There's a few other Kubeys that kind of look like a few SRMs, but not like this. Nothing like the amount of overlap between SRM and Real Steel, say. Also there's a lot of Kubeys for sale made from 6-4 Ti and S35VN for $100-$200 and the SRM brand only has one or maybe two knives I'm aware of with a Ti handle and none in S35VN. Materials indicate prestige, so this indicator goes opposite to what we'd expect if Kubey were a house brand. Either way it's a clear indication Kubey isn't positioned as an inferior brand to SRM based on how they price and what materials they use on their prestige items. So for the two to be the same company would mean that SRM is maintaining Kubey not just as a line, but doing so with an irrational pricing structure, especially if branding is an issue. And that's the point of all this, branding, right? So it could be, but I don't think B is our best answer. It's always hard to rule out C in China. The reason I'm inclined to hesitate about it here is that both knives have a grind that's pretty distinctive to SRM knives, with a mix of hollow and flat grinds and a bit of tanto-esque swaging. Also, can't forget about the Kershaw Reverb, which by now I've concluded was OEMed by SRM -- if it were OEMed by a third party that also supplied SRM with its signature grind knives, there'd be no particular reason for SRM to be at the table so handily as they are here. SRM would just be someone else wanting to buy the design. Who needs them? But they’re at the table here. There's never not a reason for that. So I'm not so sure about C either. So is it D? Are they different companies but they did a deal? Did whoever owns Kubey just go 'I like your knife and would like some with my logo on it because i don't have anything in that segment of the market?' And did SRM go 'Well, we're pretty proud of this one and we're planning on building our brand with things like this, but I hear you -- let's see if we can't do something that makes sense'? Sitting here at my desk on the other side of the world and reading the tea leaves, it's important to remember that I can never be sure of my conclusions -- but I think that's exactly what happened. Case D. Kubey agreed to take a knife that's not QUITE so good, probably for a discount. SRM chose to do a deal that emphasized their own quality over the chance to perhaps make more money up front by offering Kubey a more expensive build. I got two knives that are mostly the same, but the SRM's just a skosh better, and opens a little faster. The third - the Reverb - well, I like that handle, but it is more expensive than either of the others and I think they both are better knives, even ignoring price. The carabiner is also better secured to a backspacer like the SRM than to one side of the frame like on the Reverb. But it’s hard to be pissed at Kershaw; they’re the founder of the feast, you might say. Without them none of these knives exist. I was wondering whether Kubey could be a SRM brand, and now am thinking they are a separate company that buys some or all of their knives from other companies and rebrands them. It fits somewhat with other observations of Kubey that I've made. And that worries me a bit about them. They might not have any of their own manufacturing capability. I think they bought and rebranded some of Albatross's cheap wooden handled folders, and Albatross isn't all that good of a line to begin with in my estimation. Stuff looks better than it is. So who else is Kubey buying from? Are those expensive knives built by someone else too? If so, are they good like SRM or bad like Albatross? I haven't shelled out for one yet and now, frankly, I'm kind of hesitant to do so. My Kubey fixed knife was just fine at ~$30, but $175 for one of their premier folders is a bit different of a research proposition. I suppose they could be with Enlan, which makes ok but not great knives. (Many people like the Enlan Bee.) Enlan might be the owner of Albatross. The firm that holds the Kubey trademark also holds an Enlan trademark. But appearances can deceive and if there's one thing I know about Chinese knife companies it's that nothing's ever simple. So it's hard to be conclusive. Anyway those are my findings. Take them with as much salt as you want to, coming from a guy on the other side of the world from where both knives are from. As for me, at least I am now fairly satisfied that Kubey is not one of SRM's brands. Who knows, maybe tomorrow they'll prove me wrong. )
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Tsa1
3
May 19, 2019
Thanks for the in-depth. I wish Kershaw would just hire Sanrenmu to do the job for them.
reswright
3850
May 31, 2019
appreciated. Work isn’t the right word.... it takes time and energy but there’s a nerdish pleasure to sharing the info that makes all this not-work somehow. It’s all data they try to keep behind the curtains usually. I hate facades and like figuring out what lies beneath. Especially these days with all the problems we can’t solve, one I can solve is pleasant medicine.
KT83
17
Jul 16, 2019
reswrightHello Sir, I hope you're doing well and having a great day today. To be honest, I haven't yet read the entire thread, but I must say, it is very refreshing, as encountering a truly intelligent person, in our current societies, has sadly become a "rare phenomenon". A person who dares to "actually THINK", create independent, "unique" opinions, by applying logic and taking on, by challenging "the subconscious programming". No doubt that being different can be a lonely "endeavor of life" , as questioning "the norm" and thus also "challenging it", is/will, by "its" population be perceived as "a threat". People are scared of everything they don't understand, and nothing is as unsatisfying as when you really try to "say" something, but later realize that nobody "heard a word you said", even though they were listening the whole time... still, someone has to use this unique brain of ours, as You implied (I think), the world could use, ..needs some "help", it's in a pretty bad shape. ANYWAY..😄.., I VERY MUCH ENJOY READING YOUR THREADS, THANKS! KT✌
Tsa1
3
May 19, 2019
Thanks for the in depth! I hope mine arrived with better action! Chinese Kershaws seem to be hit or miss in terms of quality or action. I wish they would just contract out to Sanrenmu since they seem to know what they are doing!
reswright
3850
May 7, 2019
I decided to take the edge in a bit. Before:
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Classic factory grind. Microserrations. When it slices through paper it will slice clean but it will sound a bit like it's tearing the paper, because it is, thousands of little microserrations are sawing through the microscopic structure of the paper. Really, for most people and purposes, the factory grind is superior. It has more 'bite'. Best at cutting -- not best at clean slicing, when it's most important that whatever is being cut have a smooth and even cut edge, like sushi or rare roast beef, but it cuts through the same amount of material with less effort than a true honed edge takes. I'm not exactly going to use this thing to prepare ahi, so sharpening it so soon after buying it is arguably pointless, but I'm bored. After:
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Beveled hone edge. Awesome for most steels, easy as pie with a belt sharpener. Bit of a quick strop to finish the edge. The microserrations are now only visible as the remnants of the grind lines that produced them. The texture you're seeing now is the structure of the steel. In terms of sharpness?
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That's the edge it leaves slicing through toilet paper. It'll do.
stoutdog
305
May 6, 2019
Thanks for posting your investigation and refinements. It all comes down to it being a budget knife made in China. I don't know why I continue to buy budget knives when I have dozens in the high hundred dollar range and a few over that. I just received mine and so far I have no issues with it, but should there be any, I have you to thank for documenting what can be done.
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stoutdog
305
May 7, 2019
That sums it up pretty well. I get a lot of pleasure out of my collection.
reswright
3850
May 22, 2019
stoutdogYeah. Let's be honest tho, part of it goes past that. There are two kinds of people in the world, and one of them is the sort that if they walk into a room and see a few hundred knives, it's an alarming and unsettling event. I'm the other sort and I expect you and the majority of people posting here are as well. That is related to but slightly different from the joy of collection, in which we also indulge. In a lot of ways, knife collectors are like other collectors... but we aren't collecting butterflies or stamps, we're collecting something that approximately zero people ever forget is a lethal weapon no matter how many other uses we have for it, and I don't think that's by accident. Knives just have that frisson and we are just the type of people who like it most. I mean, there might be people out there who collect knives who might as easily collect teacups, I've just never got that sense upon meeting one. Know what I mean?
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