Eafengrow EF335 Tactical Folding Knives D2 Blade and G10 Handle,5 inch Closed EDC Pocket Folding Knife with Clip

1 review for Eafengrow EF335 Tactical Folding Knives D2 Blade and G10 Handle,5 inch Closed EDC Pocket Folding Knife with Clip

1. 

   5 out of 5

   FZ – June 29, 2021

   This microtech DOC clone has a couple major issues that are thankfully easy to fix.

   ISSUES:

   **LOCK UP:
   The lock bar is too thin to provide a lockup for a blade this size. The lock bar is about as thick as any other large folder, i.e. my m16-04s, but this knife is HUGE and what’s adequate for another knife is simply inadequate for this. I would have preferred a frame lock. To make up for the thinner lockbar, the spring tension has been set WAY too high. In a liner lock, a bent steel liner in the handle props the blade open. There’s a little ball bearing hammered into the liner so that it rests in a little groove when it’s closed, to keep it from opening, and when it’s nearly open so that it snaps closed reliably. In this case the bend in the liner is way too much. This causes two main problems:

   1) the lock is extremely hard to disengage
   2) normally that ball bearing slides fairly smoothly over the blade when it’s being opened, and only exerts a large amount of force when it’s resting in its groove. In this case, the liner pushing on it is so strong that it has THE WORST action I’ve ever felt. It’s running on ball bearings but it feels like crap to open and close. My knives with teflon washers are smoother than this.

   **CHAMFERING.
   Chamfering is when you take a right angle and round it off, so you don’t have sharp angles digging into your fingers. This knife is well chamfered except in one key location, the area on the handle by the flipper tab. Here the G10 makes a hard right angle. Add in the overly strong liner lock resulting in a super strong detent- whenever I flip open the knife my finger slams into the hard angles, and I’ve cut myself on it already. Seriously, I’ve cut myself on the HANDLE. That’s ridiculous.

   **SCREWS
   The screws are all free-floating. The pivot screw free floats technically, but it’s tight in its hole and tends to not move. The handle screws do free float, so if you do a full disassembly you’ll need a fingernail or something to hold down the opposite end to actually screw it in, since only one screw is provided. Furthermore, one of the threaded handle tubes that the screws screw into came stripped. I could only get a little purchase in it, and I had to lock tight it in. While the rest of the blade feels okay, albeit a little cheap, the screws were the main thing that screamed POORLY MADE to me.

   THE FIX
   The knife comes with the screw tool, which is nice. Microtech will charge you more than this knife just for the tool. If you want a tool, you might as well buy this for the tool and get a free knife for it.

   You need to take apart the knife by removing the pivot screw, then the handle screws on one side. Don’t bother with removing both sides, it’s not needed.

   **LOCKBAR:
   Remove the lockbar by removing the clip screws. Bend it the other way until it’s sticking out only a half inch. You may need to assemble and disassemble the knife several times to get it perfect.

   **ACTION:
   The bearings came only lightly greased, which is no-bueno. Use any sort of grease to lubricate and clean up the bearings and pivot area. There are special oils for this like nano oil, but even a bike chain grease or a vegetable/mineral oil will work better than nothing.

   **HANDLE:
   G10 is a tough but not too hard material. Sand the back of the handle above the spacer to round out the corner. I just used a file in my mulitool. NOTE: G10 PARTICLES ARE IRRITATING AND TOXIC. The small amounts you’ll be taking off aren’t a big problem, but make sure you sand it wet (so the dust gets trapped in the water instead of flying everywhere), and ideally with the proper PPE.

   **SCREWS:
   The screws are all different quality. I found the threading on my clip screws to be sharper and more flush than the ones in my handle, and swapped them out appropriately.