So today, a thing I bought off the internet came today. Due to mailing laws, it could not be mailed in one piece, so I had to construct it myself. This is not a huge deal, as I should probably learn to quickly assemble and disassemble butterfly knives if I am to really get into the hobby. Unfortunately, the parts themselves were made badly, and many other people have had issues with theirs as well. It seems like the seller is a bit hit and miss with what you get sent, so I figured I'd take my chances.
You see that darker part on the tang pin? That's actually where the metal has been shaved off/pressed down due to the pin being too long for the channel that was created for it. This is after I had already spent half an hour filing down both sides of the pin so that they had a fighting chance of fitting into the aforementioned channels. The fact that the metal will warp and press with only the strength of my hand means that the pins were made from a soft metal and/or were not heat treated to be stronger. I suspect that after a few days of flipping like I do, the pins will be looking very square.
EDIT: There was a disclaimer at the bottom of the page that I ordered my knife from. The tang pins were intentionally long so that if I wanted to switch out the blade to another set of handles and not worry about pin length, I could (all this means is that he uses the same blade for a bunch of different balisong models that he sells), so I can't really complain about that. The softness of the metal however, remains an issue.
Here are the channels that the tang pin is to fit into when either open or when being flipped.
Here's the second problem. The catch won't lock when the knife is in the closed position. Not easily anyways. I really have to squeeze it together to get it to close, and that means that some part of the knife is giving when I have to do that. I imagine that it is this part:
That is the kicker. It makes contact with the inside of the handle to keep the blade from hitting the handle and dulling faster from the impact. I got lucky with this one, since it is too long for the knife. I've seen complaints about it being too short, which is worse than having it too long. All of these issues can be resolved by filing or sanding bits down, but it is obviously unacceptable to have to do so much maintenance work right out of the box. Unfortunately, the seller knows his knives are shit, so he added tons of disclaimers and made all sales final, and will not allow cancelled orders. Back to the sander I go...
In short, if you are interested in getting a butterfly knife or just need something better than your local weapons shop can give you, I highly recommend avoiding 24-7 Knives, Exiled Cutlery, and all affiliated sites, unless you are willing to do as much or more work than I must for this $50 knife. There are a few other small issues that are mostly aesthetic and I only noticed because I know what to look for, but god damn did I get ripped off by this knife.
The knife itself is the FU-42, which was made after the guy was sued by Benchmade, a knife company that is extremely proud of its name and products, and felt that his knockoffs were just a bit too similar to their model 42 balisong/butterfly knife.
Last edited by hawkesnightmare; Mar 20, 2015 at 01:59 AM.
