My new M390 710 arrived with a blade that was slightly out of center. I'm sure it was still within spec, and it didn't rub the liners at all, but all the usual fixes didn't seem to work.

When that happened once before with a 710 M4, it turned out to be a mis-drilled back spacer was pulling the handle setup out of square, forcing the blade to one side. When I replaced the back-spacer with a couple of 0.165" standoff spacers everything squared-up and the M4 blade moved right over to dead center.

The thought occurred to me to try swapping the M390 blade and the M4 blade and see what would happen to the centering of both knives. To my surprise, after the blade swap, the M390 blade is now dead-center in the old M4's handle, and actually, the M4 blade (in the new M390's handle) is close enough to dead-center that it no longer bothers me.

Anyway, I ordered up a few new sets of standoff spacers for future use, even though I really shouldn't need them for these. Now I just need to remember that the new M390 blade is now in the green handle.

Anyone else have any blade centering tales or horror stories?

Centering never bothered me at all,as long as it's not hitting anything...

Ya, I'm sure a lot of it comes from our backgrounds and personalities. My father-in-law used to always use a saying that I couldn't stand: "Close enough for government work."

Most of my career has been in Surveying & Drafting. Both are disciplines of precision. If it's not perfect, or just about, you do it over. Our surveying equipment measures a couple of miles at a time with the accuracy to place a marker on a dime at that distance. If we survey a piece of property and our accuracy turns out to be off a couple inches, we are looking for the reason why. Unfortunately, that quest for accuracy carries over to other areas of my life.

Anyone else get bugged when a knife blade is visibly off center? Maybe I'm the only one.

It bugs me more if I am going to keep the knife NIB for collection purposes.

If the knife is going to get carried it urks me when its off center but I don't really loose sleep over it...unless of course its way way off, then I mess around with it and try to get it as close to center as I can.

I dont likem to be crooked , but a little aint bad.
Ive noticed the back spacer has a lot to do with smoothness of the knife also ....... dont tighten them to much or it turns into a spydie knife lockback.

I would call you all sissies for caring about blade centering, but I ticked someone off last time I did that.

Well, as a final note on this topic, I received the barrel spacers in the mail today. I installed them in the original handle for the M390 710 and I put the M390 blade back in it. The barrel spacers apparently squared up the knife correctly as the blade is now centered properly.

If you look at a 710 back-spacer you will see that it has two holes drilled for the screws to pass through and it has two nubs that fit into recesses on the liners. The nubs make the third point of contact for the back-spacer. If the two nubs are not exactly opposite each other, the will pull the liners out of whack which will make the blade move off center. That's what happened on mine.

-fj

It drives me crazy.

I swear there is more off centering on the older models.

The worst is when the blade is centered right up until those last 2 turns on the pivot. You get the slop out and it pulls the blade off center.

It drives me crazy. And another thing, it drives me crazy.

quote:

Originally posted by knives for shoes:
It drives me crazy.

It drives me crazy. And another thing, it drives me crazy.

I think I get it. It drives you crazy...or does it drive you crazy...

I ordered 111H2O about a month ago from a reputable Canadian dealer on Ebay.
I usually send a mail beforehand and ask to check for blade centering before completeing the deal.
I got the knife about ten days later with a blade so off center it was almost touching the liner.
It was even more pronounced on this knife because the blade is very large.
I mailed him back and he told me he checked it before but I think he sent the knife before reading the mail.
Any way it ended good, I sent the knife back, got my money back, he even said he would compensate me for the return shipping, but to show no ill will I told him it's on me, it was less than $20.
One note about off centered blades, it drives me crazy and I cannot live with it.
Another note on Ebay, up to now I've had great experience with it, I usually go with a few reputable dealers, they check the knife for me,
we agree on shipping method and price, options are usually stated in the advertisement, at around the $15 price.
And there are no customs limitation on recieving knives as long as it's clearly stated on the package.
Customs taxes usually depend on the shipping method, the higher the shipping costs the more likely you will pay customs fees.
other than that it arrives at my door, in 10 days to two weeks.