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Some research on titanium 42 clones

PostPosted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 4:20 am
by bozoskeletonz
I recently sold a 42 I had, and did a big writeup about spotting fakes etc. I spent a while on it so I thought I would share. Any insights would be welcome, thanks!! I can embed the pictures directly if anyone finds this useful, otherwise theres a link to my side by side photos.

Steel copies are super easy to catch. They’re steel and therefore heavier and magnetic. Titanium clones are harder to recognize.

This website http://www.dhgate.com/product/the-one-b ... 1065437241 is selling BM42 clones with actual titanium handles. If you click to see all reviews and click on page 3, someone posted photos of an authentic 42 and this clone. The differences shown there are the tang cup shapes and the spring loaded latch. Here’s a video of the knife: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7RKolL6AXU

I have both of these knives and will post some pictures of the BM42 and the clone. Differences include:
Tang cups, tang pin, tang horns, spring, spring latch…
The tang cups are the dead giveaway, as none of the titanium clones have the same dimensions or shape.
Tang pin is smaller and a higher quality metal on the authentic (I think this is why it sounds better when flipping).
Tang horns are a little different.
Hardware (pins, screws) bulges out slightly on the original, the clone is almost flush.
The spring latch used to be a dead giveaway. The genuine 42’s had a UFO type shape, while the clones had round dome shape. However, they started manufacturing almost perfect copies: http://butterflyknifekits.com/index.php ... etail&p=41 The only difference I can see is the clone latch has a square bottom (on the spring side) while the genuine Benchmade latch is curved at the bottom. I don’t know about the material, as my clone has the typical clone dome. The spring on the clone has a smaller diameter both overall and metal thickness.

The titanium channel handles are quite similar. The clone is milled from a single piece of titanium. The Benchmade is slightly thicker. Also, the cuts in the center channel are round on the clone and square on the original. The clone scratches much easier.

https://goo.gl/photos/LWSfY7yNabUkSYMi6