Sage 5 Action Stiffness

[MattM68]

So I just got a Sage 5 about a week ago, I love it, but the action seems extremely tight. I've tried adjusting the pivot, but I haven't been happy with the results. If the blade swings freely the knife has a ton of play. In order to get rid of the play, the blade has to be very very tight. It's about as stiff as my Native 5 lightweight, which is my most difficult knife to open. Every other aspect about the knife I've been very happy with. If anyone else has a fix for me, or experienced the same thing, let me know.

Matt

[Sharp Guy]

Mine was/is also pretty tight but it doesn't sound like it's as tight as yours. I was able to free it up with a slight pivot adjustment but it still doesn't feel quite right. There's no blade play when locked up but there is a little side to side wiggle when the blade is free. It's not a free dropper like my PM2s which is kind of disappointing considering the knife costs a little more than a S30V PM2. It is pretty smooth and I can close it with slight wrist flick so it's not too bad overall in that regard.

My bigger problem is that my Sage 5 has a little slop in the detent which drives me crazy. The blade also gets stuck if I try to close it and the detent ball doesn't clear the blade tang. None of my other knives of a similar build have these problems. So I'm considering sending it in to W&R to see if they can correct it. I'm hopeful that it'll come back much improved. If not, I might have to send this one on it's way and do without a Sage 5 until they can work the bugs out. I love the Sage series and I really want to like this one but it's not as good as I was hoping for.

EDIT: A little off track but a Sage 5 just sold on the Exchange for $57. Wow!

[sal]

Hi Matt,

Where did you buy your knife?

sal

[MattM68]

Hi Matt,

Where did you buy your knife?

sal

Knifeworks! Never had any problems with them before! It was actually a gift from my girlfriend, but she ordered it through them.

[sal]

If it doesn't sort out, you can always send it to us.

sal

[four_shore]

When I purchased this knife I got a little bit ahead of myself and bought several and they all have the exact same result. very stiff, extremely difficult to find the sweet spot where it would be smooth and still lock up solid. I also noticed slop in the detent when closed on all of the four sage 5s that i handled. most of us are probably so spoiled with the tight tolerances and **** near perfection of the sage knives but theres definitely some kinks to be worked out in this one. for the record i am perfectly familiar with "break in periods" but as already mentioned...something felt off.

[Bdubs808]

My Sage 5 is not a free dropper like the PM2, but it is very smooth and has a good detent. I have seen people on youtube that have free dropping Sage 5s. I will patiently wait as mine breaks in :)

[farnorthdan]

When I purchased this knife I got a little bit ahead of myself and bought several and they all have the exact same result. very stiff, extremely difficult to find the sweet spot where it would be smooth and still lock up solid. I also noticed slop in the detent when closedon all of the four sage 5s that i handled. most of us are probably so spoiled with the tight tolerances and **** near perfection of the sage knives but theres definitely some kinks to be worked out in this one. for the record i am perfectly familiar with "break in periods" but as already mentioned...something felt off.

Yea, kinda a bummer about the sloppy detent, mine has a wee bit also. I still really like the 5 though, big fan of the compression lock.

Also, Welcome to the forum four_shore. :)

[four_shore]

thanks and i'm sure they aren't all that way. the sage 5 is very close to perfect in all honesty. once they fix the tolerances on the detent, i'll be forking out more money for their knives (pun intended).

[FDE]

Mine was/is also pretty tight but it doesn't sound like it's as tight as yours. I was able to free it up with a slight pivot adjustment but it still doesn't feel quite right. There's no blade play when locked up but there is a little side to side wiggle when the blade is free. It's not a free dropper like my PM2s which is kind of disappointing considering the knife costs a little more than a S30V PM2. It is pretty smooth and I can close it with slight wrist flick so it's not too bad overall in that regard.

My bigger problem is that my Sage 5 has a little slop in the detent which drives me crazy. The blade also gets stuck if I try to close it and the detent ball doesn't clear the blade tang. None of my other knives of a similar build have these problems. So I'm considering sending it in to W&R to see if they can correct it. I'm hopeful that it'll come back much improved. If not, I might have to send this one on it's way and do without a Sage 5 until they can work the bugs out. I love the Sage series and I really want to like this one but it's not as good as I was hoping for.

EDIT: A little off track but a Sage 5 just sold on the Exchange for $57. Wow!

For some reason the Sage 5 did not receive the little ramp machined on the blade the Paramilitary 2 has. This ramp helps guide the detent ball up on to the blade, preventing the detent ball from hitting a wall until force makes it pop up as seen on the Sage 5. Curious if this feature was omitted for a reason.

[four_shore]

Mine was/is also pretty tight but it doesn't sound like it's as tight as yours. I was able to free it up with a slight pivot adjustment but it still doesn't feel quite right. There's no blade play when locked up but there is a little side to side wiggle when the blade is free. It's not a free dropper like my PM2s which is kind of disappointing considering the knife costs a little more than a S30V PM2. It is pretty smooth and I can close it with slight wrist flick so it's not too bad overall in that regard.

My bigger problem is that my Sage 5 has a little slop in the detent which drives me crazy. The blade also gets stuck if I try to close it and the detent ball doesn't clear the blade tang. None of my other knives of a similar build have these problems. So I'm considering sending it in to W&R to see if they can correct it. I'm hopeful that it'll come back much improved. If not, I might have to send this one on it's way and do without a Sage 5 until they can work the bugs out. I love the Sage series and I really want to like this one but it's not as good as I was hoping for.

EDIT: A little off track but a Sage 5 just sold on the Exchange for $57. Wow!

For some reason the Sage 5 did not receive the little ramp machined on the blade the Paramilitary 2 has. This ramp helps guide the detent ball up on to the blade, preventing the detent ball from hitting a wall until force makes it pop up as seen on the Sage 5. Curious if this feature was omitted for a reason.

^ good observation. i can't think of any logical reason that they wouldn't include that ramp on the sage 5.

if some of these small issues are rectified, this will be such a perfect little edc. for now the sage 1 & 2 will more than suffice.

[MattM68]

Thanks Sal! It's smoothed out a little bit even in the past day. It's still very stiff, but obviously it seems like it'll only get better as time goes on.

The detent on my knife isn't perfect, but it seems to be better than what others are describing.

[timlara]

I'd been waiting for the Sage 5 for a long time, so since I'm lucky enough to live nearby, I went in to the SFO and hand-picked mine to make sure I got one with good action / detent. However, I must admit that all 3-4 specimens that I handled were very good and I would have been happy with any of them. Also, of the ones I handled, none of them were "free falling" when the lock was released either, but all had good "flickable" detents, smooth action, and no blade play.

One internal difference of the Sage 5 vs. the PM2 is that the Sage 5 has an internal stop pin groove/channel that the PM2 does not, so that could be adding enough extra friction to make it hard for the blade to free-fall.

I can still easily flip mine closed with a slight flick of the wrist, so it doesn't really bother me, but it does certainly have a little more "drag" than my PM2s do.

[MattM68]

Okay, so I have a update on my Sage 5. I kind of gave up on it, and just accepted the stiffness of it, but was bothered by the knife being very off-center. So I took the pivot screws out, put 2 pennies between the blade and the scale, and then readjusted the pivot. I took out the pennies, and then my blade was centered! And my knife was magically no longer incredibly stiff. I have no idea why, but that's what happened! The action is completely different now.

[Doc Dan]

I wonder how that would have fixed the problems you were having? Something was out of kilter for sure.

[Larry_Mott]

Sounds like the liners weren't perfectly parallell, which - i have been told is the reason the blade isn't centered, but i don't know.. Had a MCusta that had super early (half the width of the lock bar) lockup AND lock stick. In that case i guess it was some micro burr, because it sorted itself in a matter of a week or so.

[Evil D]

Something was binding up. I was about to type out my method of centering blades because I had a feeling that was the cause of your stiff blade action. There are a lot of flat surfaces that make up a folder and if they're not all parallel you're going to have issues somewhere.

[MattM68]

Yeah, it was really weird to me. The stiffness and the centering issues really had me frustrated. I had the knife apart to try to fix it too. I tried the trick where you loosen all the screws and try to shift the scales in opposite directions, and I tried loosening one of the pivot screws to change the direction of the centering, but never had any luck. I don't understand how I fixed it, but I did! So now the knife is incredibly smooth, and rock solid. It's not quite free falling, but still very smooth. No more stiffness or centering issues. Glad I fixed it

[ejcr98]

I am considering getting a Sage 5. Are the issues discussed in this thread prevalent? Has Spyderco fixed them (assuming there was something to fix)?

I don't want to buy the Sage 5 if the problems are recurring and Spyderco is in the process of fixing it. If so, I rather wait for Spyderco to correct the matter and get the knife then.

Thanks

[abbazaba]

Mine has seen a ton of use and it still pretty stiff, but hydraulic smooth. I think the very strong lock bar and detent drag are to blame, but this setup actually feels really good. I can't recommend the knife enough!

BTW, the action on my Para3 is the same as my Sage5.