Vic 111mm Backside Phillips is PANTS!! (that's bad...)

[Mr. Whippy]

The design of the backside Phillips on the 111mm Vic tools is craptacular.   I was testing it out as a T-handle tool and the thing completely failed. The Phillips head cut through the brass rod and bent the aluminum liner to smurf.




Looking at it, it's a combination of soft brass and lack of material in the liner.  If the there was a thick steel liner, it may have helped considerably.  It's a totally inadequate design for this tool. 



This pic shows the cut through brass pin. 

My plan is to replace the pin with hardened stainless steel, but honestly, the thin outside liner makes me think it'll fail again.

Victorinox: This needs to be addressed.

[DaveK]

Ouch!

That's quite surprising Mr W - whilst I've not used that tool on a 111mm SAK, I always felt it was a bit more substantial than that!

Warranty time?

[ICanFixThat]

Time to send it to Vic for Warranty.  

Never seen such a total faulire.  How does the hole in the driver look, I'm thinking it would need to be pretty sharp to cut the rivet.  It's true the rivets are not that strong against a sheer force, but maybe the bending of the liner allowed for a greater force to be applied.  hmmm.

Send it to vic and let us know what they say.

[Mr. Whippy]

Well,  

I have a hardened steel pin that's just over 3mm.  I'm going to sand it down to 2.5 mm and see if it functions better.  The liner could still strip out, but we'll see.

If I send it in, I'll just get the same weak pins back, so I figure I'll try this first.

To be honest, if this doesn't work, I'll be abandoning the 111mm Vic as a serious EDC.

[thebullfrog]

Another score in favor of backspring corkscrews 

[DaveK]

Another score in favor of backspring corkscrews 

Lol!

@ Mr W - good point. Good luck with the beefing up. (I'm still surprised though)!

[jzmtl]

Just because you can use it as a t-handle doesn't mean you should.  I've broke hardened steel parts with the amount of torque a handle can provide, the brass/aluminum construction just isn't made to be that strong.

[stressmaster5000]

Ouch! 

[Andreas]

Wow that was a new one. I'm surprised you could apply that much torque, had to fit the screw perfectly - the corkscrew replacement phillips driver is notorious for being too large to be useful for most things

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Now that is surprising

Mind you, you did generate a hell of a lot of torque

[BIG-TARGET]

That is truly a first!!

[Gareth]

Yup, that's a first for me too.  I think you've got strong hands Nate.

[Neil]

Ouch!  I'm another who's never seen that before and I've seen a lot of damaged SAKs.  I'd send it back to Vic. anyway and have a nice new one to modify if that's your plan.

[Mr. Whippy]

This is my OH Locksmith. Don't think I'll get a warranty repair on this one...

[Sea Monster]

I rarely use SAK phillips, so I've nothing to say on that part of it.

If it weren't for the custom jobby, I'd give Vic at least one chance at warranty before avoiding the whole 111mm line.

What I did notice as I was checking my 111mms for comparison.

The outer liner on my Three layer 111mms (OHT & Helmsman) is slightly thicker than the one on my two Layer 111mm.

I also noticed that the Inner liner on my OHT and (Dutch?) Army knife is steel, while the centre liner on my Helmsman is alloy. (I imagine that has something to do with the OHT and Army knife being Liner locking, while the Helmsman is Packlock)

Just some possible variables that might contribute to that sort of failure.

[Styerman]

All backspring Phillips are only good for one thing , fistloads . as drivers they fail !

Chris

[Mr. Whippy]

Well,

Looking at this rigorously,

If the Phillips head is normal to the plane of the screw/bolt, and force is applied normal to the handle surface we can figure out the torque.  I figure maybe 60 lbs (260 newtons) of force applied, 1/2 to each end of the handle gives a torque of:

2(0.045m X 130N)= 11.7 Nm torque


From a website giving assembly specs for steel bolts,

a #4  grade 5 steel bolt (diameter of 2.8 mm, that's 10% bigger than the diameter of the 2.5 mm brass pin), dry assembly torque is 2 Nm

This was 6 times the assembly torque!

Oh, and this little bit from a site regarding bolts and materials

Brass
Brass is an alloy of primarily copper and zinc. Brass is highly corrosion resistant and electrically conductive. However, its use as a fastener is somewhat limited due to its relative softness. It is used primarily for its appearance.

I think it is safe to say that the backside Phillips is under-engineered.  Even if the outer liner was as stiff as a regular backspring, I suspect the brass would begin to stretch, fatigue and eventually fail, given the arrangement in the tool.

I'll replace the pin, but I don't hold much hope for this as a goto farm tool...

[WhichDawg]

wow Mr. Whippy! very interesting and thanks for that. (and sorry it broke on you)

I do not like the back philips but so many of my country-people (usa) like it.

Mainly because we are not a big wine drinking country and idea of a philips
instead of a corkscrew appeals to so many here (just my opinion)

In my case, for me when I first started getting into SAKs I wanted philips and
not the corkscrew, even the backspring one.

(scene from 2010) "I didn't know...I didn't know!"
How inconvenient it was and impractical, and you have just increased that notion!

but I have learned, from the smart people here and at SOSAK! ty sir

[Mr. Whippy]

Update:  Repaired.

A few pictures:

The sheared brass pin:



Both pieces of sheared off brass pin.  New hardened steel pin in place:



The repaired liner. The steel pin donor next to it. Scales back on:


Beauty shot of the tool with Donors and Deceased.

[glorn]

I'll stick to a corkscrew. If the screw is that hard to get out, I'd rather just skip the whole thing and drink wine until someone arrives with a proper driver.

[glorn]

Which reminds me...

Hey Victorinox! Can we get a nice inline Phillips of a decent size? Not the Outrider type, I mean something more substantial. And go ahead and couple it with a magnifier while you are at it. I imagine a 111 Scientist or Yeoman would sell like ice water at a curry shop.

Can I get an amen?

[J-sews]

Good to see it back up and running Nate!


(amen)

[Benner]

This is my OH Locksmith. Don't think I'll get a warranty repair on this one...

PLEASE don't take this the wrong way,  but have you considered that this could just be down to your modification not being 100% spot on?  I have never seen that on any SAK - ever, which probably doesn't mean too much, but for Neil to never have seen that - that really says something.

[tim]

It may be that Wenger has the upper hand here.  The Ranger-61 appears to have steel liners either side of the corkscrew, so I imagine their Philips drivers are similarly constructed.

I don't know whether the rivet-pin is strong enough to stop the liners pulling apart under high load, as I don't have any knives with Philips tools.  Living in France, I tend to favour the corkscrew option. 

[Mr. Whippy]

This is my OH Locksmith. Don't think I'll get a warranty repair on this one...

PLEASE don't take this the wrong way,  but have you considered that this could just be down to your modification not being 100% spot on?  I have never seen that on any SAK - ever, which probably doesn't mean too much, but for Neil to never have seen that - that really says something.

Good question.

However, for this mod, I simply drilled off the pin heads, slid off the Locksmith blade/openers layers and slid on the OHT bits. Then put the outside (Locksmith) liner and peened the pins again.

If the pin had pulled through, I'd agree. In this case, it's clear that the pin was simply cut through by the tool.

Too much torque, too soft brass pin, too flimsy outside liner.

[Mr. Whippy]

Which reminds me...

Hey Victorinox! Can we get a nice inline Phillips of a decent size? Not the Outrider type, I mean something more substantial. And go ahead and couple it with a magnifier while you are at it. I imagine a 111 Scientist or Yeoman would sell like ice water at a curry shop.

Can I get an amen?

Amen!

(BTW, inline tools have larger faces interacting with thick backsprings on bothsides--these features help prevent torquing to occur at the tool/brass pin interface (ie the backsprings on either side would have to bend out of the way to allow transmission of the forces).  An inline Phillips, which could be "locked" at 90 degrees (like the cap lifter) would allow REAL torque to be safely applied.

[Benner]

It just seems odd that the single failure we have ever seen comes from a modded tool.  Could just be a coincidence, but I don't like the idea of calling something crappy when it may not be anything due to the design or the manufacture.  Peening could have weakened it or something?

I'd just not be writing off something yet which has proved reliable to many many others after this single failure.

[Mr. Whippy]

Anyone want to offer up a sacrificial OHT?  I'd be more than happy to torque off your Phillips...

Actually, any of the 111 mms with a backside Phillips...

[tim]

Too much torque, too soft brass pin, too flimsy outside liner.

I imagine the liners are meant to withstand the torque against the steel of the Philips, and the pin only exerts force to hold the liners in position.  Once the pin head fails and the liners separate, the pin-shaft has no chance.

[Benner]

What would constitute a failure though?  How much torque should it cope with?