112 Slim Pro TRX sucked until I voided the warranty.

S

Shuffling Madness

Joined
Oct 14, 2023
Messages
6
I have had a few 110’s and 112’s over the years, and I was always able to open them with the flick of the wrist. I just bought a 112 slimline Pro TRX and was really disappointed. The tension was absolutely ridiculous, it would open about 1/2” then bind for about another inch of travel then get a little easier.

Since it had screws I decided to take it apart and see what was going on. Cleaned and oiled the pivot

First thing I noticed in the closed position the side of the tang the lock lever rest against was perfectly straight and the there was a very pronounced shoulder Instead of having a nice continuous curve this was causing the binding. So here goes the warranty.

I took the blade out rounded off the shoulder on the tang on a belt sander, then polished the tang and lock bar finger to a 3000 grit finish. I also did the inside of the scales around the pivot with 3000 grit. Put it back together and it now opened nice and smooth.

Still couldn’t Flick it open so I took it apart again, took the spring bar out marked the middle and bent it. The first time I went too far and it had no tension on the blade at all when it was closed so I had to straighten it out some.

Now I had a reasonable tension, I tightened the pivot screw only enough to allow blade to fall straight down by itself, when the lock bar was completely pressed so the was no tension on the blade. I now had a smooth opening knife that would flick open easily and lock securely, but the blade had wobble open and closed. I then played with the pivot screw. I have it to the point that it doesn’t wobble. I can still flick it open but it’s hard to do. Blade does not drop by itself and I guess I can live with that. From here I guess I’ll try some teflon spray that dries and see if I can get it to flick open easier.
 
My Ford GT40 absolutely sucked at off-roading until I put a 9" lift kit, transfer case and front axle from a 79 Bronco, and some mud tires on it. It was just okay at off-roading after all that work.

In hindsight, I probably should've just bought a jeep in the first place.

Didn't stop me from bashing its lack of off-road capabilities on all the GT40 forums though.

Just sayin'...
 
I was just gonna say "welcome to the Buck forum",
But that level of sarcasm is more to the point......

😁

Remove the " sucks" and the negative connotation from the thread title, and explain, as you did, how you modified the knife, and I'd think "cool, you made the knife yours".

🤔
 
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What GPyro GPyro said.

Bashing is usually met with sarcasm or fan boy defense.

Absolutely nothing wrong with working a knife over to make it your own!

For instance (and since it's a current topic), I didn't suggest Buck 110s sucked without a lanyard. And whether my mod is an improvement or not is subjective.

If you successfully make a flipper from a 112 Slim Pro and you may generate some fans. But to bash something that is near perfect as designed for its purpose is a party foul in these parts.
 
On a similar note about current topics:

There's also nothing wrong with wishing something were different, or had other options available, without others interpreting it as a complaint.

That line of thinking eliminates the need for a custom shop......

😊
 
Wow tough crowd. It may have been just my knife was a bad that slipped through QC stuff like that happens once in awhile. I am sorry about speaking blasphemy at the holy alter of Buck. But blasphemy or not as it came the knife I bought sucked. I only posted to let people know what I did to make it better incase the ran into the same thing.

Last you’ll here from me, Farging Iceholes
 
Hey, don’t condemn the choir. I don’t know of anybody who ever considered any flavor of Buck 110 or 112 to be ‘flickable’. They have flipper knives for that. In fact Buck makes several very, very nice ones. Nice work modding the knife to operate like you want it to. But when you come into a product-specific forum claiming said product sucks because it doesn’t do what it was never designed to do, don’t cry when you get a bit of backlash.
 
Actually, I thought he made a pretty good post.

Just a wrong tone to start out, especially as a first timer.

Learn some social graces and come back.
We're not as bad a bunch as you think.

Otherwise, watch that door, it has a strong closing spring.
 
I am going to forgive and forget and hope you will to. Let’s put flicking my knife open aside for a few minutes. The 112 Slim Pro TRX comes with thumb studs. It was designed to be opened using them. My knife had so much tension it was extremely hard to open, I,m not going to say to the point of being painful, but it definitely wasn’t easy. Then when it gets partially open it gets to that shoulder and gets really stiff and binds up. At this point I can no longer push it open and have to reposition my thumb and push again or use 2 hands to finish opening the knife. This is why I said it sucked, because it certainly wasn’t a one step smooth motion like it should be.

I joined the Navy in 1972, I was stationed on a destroyer escort out of Pearl Harbor after boot camp, and that is where I saw my first buck 110, almost every sailor had one. When you get there they usually have you teamed up with someone who has been in awhile so you learn how to do things. One day I saw the guy I was working with take out his 110, clasp it between his thumb and fore finger with the pivot pointing towards his elbow, he then swung his arm outward and flicked his wrist and the knife snapped open. I was pretty impressed. He showed me how to do it and I have been able to open every 110 (4 of them) and 112 (2 of them) I’ve had that way since then. So I was kind disappointed that this one wouldn’t even start to open that way. By the way that was pretty much the way everyone I was stationed with opened their 110‘s.
 
Shuffling Madness said:
I am going to forgive and forget and hope you will to. Let’s put flicking my knife open aside for a few minutes. The 112 Slim Pro TRX comes with thumb studs. It was designed to be opened using them. My knife had so much tension it was extremely hard to open, I,m not going to say to the point of being painful, but it definitely wasn’t easy. Then when it gets partially open it gets to that shoulder and gets really stiff and binds up. At this point I can no longer push it open and have to reposition my thumb and push again or use 2 hands to finish opening the knife. This is why I said it sucked, because it certainly wasn’t a one step smooth motion like it should be.

I joined the Navy in 1972, I was stationed on a destroyer escort out of Pearl Harbor after boot camp, and that is where I saw my first buck 110, almost every sailor had one. When you get there they usually have you teamed up with someone who has been in awhile so you learn how to do things. One day I saw the guy I was working with take out his 110, clasp it between his thumb and fore finger with the pivot pointing towards his elbow, he then swung his arm outward and flicked his wrist and the knife snapped open. I was pretty impressed. He showed me how to do it and I have been able to open every 110 (4 of them) and 112 (2 of them) I’ve had that way since then. So I was kind disappointed that this one wouldn’t even start to open that way. By the way that was pretty much the way everyone I was stationed with opened their 110‘s.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your service! The 112 Ranger's namesake was the USS Ranger. Interesting tale that should be able to drum up here without much effort.

The 110s and 112s with their heavy brass frames made opening in that manner pretty easy.

The light construction on the 110 and 112 TRX makes it very difficult of not dangerous to attemp opening like that.

The reason the blade seems to bind is because of the shape of the end of the blade. As the blade is opened, the pressure from the lock bar and spring increases as the blade pivots until the the lock bar engages the blade. No matter what you do to shape the pivot end of the blade, you will achieve 2 things. 1- the blade travel will become less difficult, and 2- the force against the blade by the lock bar will be so diminished that it will not hold the blade closed adequately.

There's little that can be done, due to its lightweight design and the geometry involved to make it work the way you want and it to remain safe.

I'll share this image so you can see the relationship between the components when closed.

Grinding away the round part of the blade changes how the lock bar and spring interact with the blade, causing the issue you're experiencing.

You can see the pivot end of the blade is not "round" which is why the blade doesn't fall free like a flipper might.

When you grind the high point off making that end more round, there is less pressure on the lock bar and spring which makes it easier to flip, but you loose the high point that holds the blade closed.

Screenshot_20230901_224307_Photobucket.jpg

Welcome back!
 
So you’re another old fart. I was just entering my sophomore year in high school in ‘72, and admiring the hell out of one of the teacher’s ‘70 Chevelle SS is about the only good thing I remember from it. Anyway, welcome to the forum. We’re not a bad bunch, really. And thank you for your service! I work with a bunch of former navy guys - all good people.
 
In your photo you see how you have a nice radius on the tang for the lock bar to travel, mine was more like a rounded of 90 degree ( not quite that extreme but I hope you get the idea). That’s were my binding was occurring so I just took that sharper radius and made look more like yours. That made it open and closer smoothly with no binding.

To address the spring tension issue at the point where the spring rod is farthest from the lockbar(approximately the middle) I marked it and bent the rod. I bent it to far the and as you described it would not hold the blade closed tightly. I took the bend out a little at a time and got it where it just holds the blade in when closed.

The combination of these 2 things made it so my blade now opens easily and smoothly using the thumb stud all in one motion.

I can loosen my pivot screw and get it to flip open very easily, but then I get a lot of wobble in the blade both open and closed. Right now I have it just tight enough to eliminate the wobble, and set like it is the knife will flip open but it takes a lot of force to do it.

I’m happy with it the way it is because opening it with the thumb stud works well now (it doesnt suck anymore) , I am going to try a spray on teflon lube that dries on the pivot and tang to see if I can make it flip open easier.

I’m sure that what I have done voided the warranty but I never need the warranty on any Buck knife I’ve owned so it doesn’t matter to me.
 
Thanks Danny I turn 70 tomorrow. Officially an old fart. There was guy down
the road that had a 70 Cobra, Torino body style 4spd black on black that I used to drool over. That car was bad ass. And Gpyro I don’t know about that social graces thing. I’m pretty mid-evil sometimes. a few heads on spikes keep the others in line kinda guy.
 
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I’m not much into flipping knives open or carrying knives with thumb studs or pocket clips. I do have a few but generally they get stashed in a pack or vehicle. But I have been interested in the 112 TRX. It would be interesting to see how it may smooth out after repeated openings over time.
 
Since my mechanical skills are limited, I would have sent it to Buck to fix. But kudos for doing it yourself.
 
My next one will have the zero after the 7..I joined up in 73 and went to the Navy Weapons station in Yorktown. In BEEP school I kept seeing guys younger than me with a third class PO stripe and found out they enlisted for 6 years instead of 4. I was in the middle of doing that and changing my rating from ET-N to EW (electronic warfare tech) that would get me a year of school outside of San Francisco. That held a LOT of appeal back then..
 
ya got any pics of the work and mods ya did to it..before and after? I read but what's that saying..... a picture is worth a thousand words
 
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