umnum test from poland

The lock failure is surprising to say the least. Wish we could get a full and proper translation.
 
How sure are we that other RIL-type folders would not fold up under a spine-whack?
 
If I should choose to slay a refrigerator, I suppose that I will have to resort to a different knife...such as a fixed blade.
It is what it is, a folding knife that was never designed with the attributes of a fixed blade.
 
Looked like after some pretty good and hard test the ceramic ball dented the bladed enough the lock would not hold anymore.
 
Interesting. There is no doubt from the video that the lock doesn't hold well.

I have tested 2 Umnumzaan's with spine wacks, and good hard ones, and they passed fine. One I foolishly sold but the other is my current EDC and I trust it 100%.

And I am on the hunt for a Tanto Umnum right now too :)
 
An interesting test to say the least. My umnumzaan will close unless its fully locked open. When I open it " lightly", the poly "O" rings are not compressed. The lock engages only about 25-30% and the knife will close if folded closed like a slip joint pocket knife about 50% of the time. If I open it more forcefully and compress the "O" rings fully, it stays locked fully open and will not close. When locked fully, the lock engages 50-60%. This is about th only flaw I have found with the umnumzaan. If the umnumzaan had the "click" solid lock of the sebenza, I would easily say its the best folding knife ever made. But since the lock is of the ceramic ball design, I cannot say that. I love the umnumzaan, dont get me wrong, but I do find this to be a flaw. Its a good design, but I like the sebbie lock better. I feel the sebbie lock is 100% more solid.
 
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Thinking about this some more and examining my Umnumzaan something occurred to me. There is a pic in that review (3rd pic) where he bends the lock backwards to show the detent ball. I tried to look at mine in that way and it feels like if I bent it that far the lock would be way overextended and definitely weakened.

Those who have an umnum look at the 3rd pic which shows the detent ball and try that with your knife to see what you think, because I think it would possibly cause a lock to be weak and malfunction if bent to show the ball like in that pic.
 
Biginboca said:
Thinking about this some more and examining my Umnumzaan something occurred to me. There is a pic in that review (3rd pic) where he bends the lock backwards to show the detent ball. I tried to look at mine in that way and it feels like if I bent it that far the lock would be way overextended and definitely weakened.

Those who have an umnum look at the 3rd pic which shows the detent ball and try that with your knife to see what you think, because I think it would possibly cause a lock to be weak and malfunction if bent to show the ball like in that pic.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing....I can't imagine the blade rolling throught the bar like that ( Twig, finger hit) even if the ceramic ball was missing...i beat the hell out of one of mine earlier...12 good spine hits to my desk as i was watching the vids and the only thing that happened is a dent in my desk :D

If the lock is bent far enough out to see the ball that definately take a good amount of tension out of the lock bar.

I like the fact that they beat up the Zaan ...thats pritty cool. :)
 
bigmark408 said:
I was thinking the same thing....I can't imagine the blade rolling throught the bar like that ( Twig, finger hit) even if the ceramic ball was missing...i beat the hell out of one of mine earlier...12 good spine hits to my desk as i was watching the vids and the only thing that happened is a dent in my desk :D

If the lock is bent far enough out to see the ball that definately take a good amount of tension out of the lock bar.

I like the fact that they beat up the Zaan ...thats pritty cool. :)
Click to expand...

I saw that as well. The lockbar should never be bent out like that. Heck, even strider and hinderer put the lock ther to stop this from happening. Doing so will cause the lock to be weaker. This is pretty much common sense for those of us familiar with framelock knives. I cringe when I see pics like that...:eek:
 
there is another test done by one of the most knowledgeable knife enthusiast in PL and in his case the lock never caused any problems. He also took it to extreme and did spine whacking! Bending lock out of line so much is not the best idea...
 
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Hi,

I'm one of the admins on the knives.pl.

The tests You can see are one part of work of our passaround team - the problem of topic starter is probably, as he states, that he don't speak polish, and he also did not find the translator.

You can judge the tests different, but they are just tests, carried out by one of our users acc. to his own "methodology". The testers have a plenty of rope for carrying out the tests.


Regarding lock failure, as PiterM wrote, there are some other experiences - also among Polish knife enthusiasts, published in our forum - with this element.

Our passaround team will contact Mr. Reeve and will talk about this case.
This is the standard procedure, when any problems during tests occure. Just the way it should be done.

It was not our intention to publish those tests results anywhere outside our own forum, before the passaround team can contact the manufacturer.

It's just a lesson for us for the future, not to publish anything from PA before all potential appeared problems are clarified.

Thanks for Your attention.
 
bigmark408 said:
If the lock is bent far enough out to see the ball that definately take a good amount of tension out of the lock bar.
Click to expand...

You guys might have nailed it! :thumbup: (assuming that the vids are presented in order)

I probably will own an umm before next Christmas ;)
 
PiterM said:
there is another test done by one of the most knowledgeable knife enthusiast in PL and in his case the lock never caused any problems. He also took it to extreme and did spine whacking! Bending lock out of line so much is not the best idea...
Click to expand...

I guess it's one of those things you feel you can do when it isn't your money, even if it would never happen in any real life situation???
 
rybak said:
Hi,

I'm one of the admins on the knives.pl.

The tests You can see are one part of work of our passaround team - the problem of topic starter is probably, as he states, that he don't speak polish, and he also did not find the translator.

You can judge the tests different, but they are just tests, carried out by one of our users acc. to his own "methodology". The testers have a plenty of rope for carrying out the tests.


Regarding lock failure, as PiterM wrote, there are some other experiences - also among Polish knife enthusiasts, published in our forum - with this element.

Our passaround team will contact Mr. Reeve and will talk about this case.
This is the standard procedure, when any problems during tests occure. Just the way it should be done.

It was not our intention to publish those tests results anywhere outside our own forum, before the passaround team can contact the manufacturer.

It's just a lesson for us for the future, not to publish anything from PA before all potential appeared problems are clarified.

Thanks for Your attention.
Click to expand...

Thanks for appearing here and adding some background. Whether or not the test methodology is valid or realistic is certainly a question. Contacting CRK is obviously a very constructive idea, and we'd probably all love to hear his views.

I have to add that, if you try "not to publish anything from PA before all potential ... problems are clarified," you will (1) probably never get anything published :D and (2) set yourself apart from most of the content on the internet. :( I spent some time poking around on your site - it looks like a great resource. I wish my Polish were as good as your English. Thanks again for your note. :thumbup:
 
Another footnote on that test. I was thinking that I was going to see a lock failure when the tester started cutting the tires. That's the kind of cutting that can easily put a lot of sideways or reverse pressure on the blade and lock. I don't know whether that's credit to the knife or to the guy doing the cutting, though. (?)
 
Biginboca said:
Those who have an umnum look at the 3rd pic which shows the detent ball and try that with your knife to see what you think, because I think it would possibly cause a lock to be weak and malfunction if bent to show the ball like in that pic.
Click to expand...

I don't own an umnum so I can't speak to the strength of the lock bar; however I've tweaked a number of Sebenza's lock bars to that level of deflection, if not slightly more, to make minor adjustments in blade opening tension. In each case the titanium has proven is VERY resilient in that the lock bar easily returned to the opposite scale with tension to spare once the blade was removed. I cant imagine the titanium lock bar on the umnum to be any less durable than the Sebenza.

What I did find interesting was the video where he depressed the lock bar down several times with the blade extended. I couldn't do that on a Sebenza if I tried, does the interface between the blade tang and the ball on an umnum lock bar make that movement possible?

Like I said I don't own or have experience with the umnum, I just want to know if that movement is normal prior to the ball having caused the slight ding in the blade lock tang?
 
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