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dual_sport_dork

My aluminum Reate Exo-M is too loud! (fedia.io)

submitted 3 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/pocketknife

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I just received my aluminum model Exo-M in the mail today, and I absolutely love this knife, but it's so damn loud! I feel the urge to fidget with it, but I worry that I'm annoying my neighbors. It's so loud and piercing, it sounds like a Garand ping every time I open a package.

Does anyone have advice for noise reduction on knives? I thought about maybe putting a thin layer of epoxy or silicone or something along the ends of the frame that make contact with the blade, but I feel like the tolerances are so tight that any amount of material being present could possibly interfere with opening/closing the knife, so I don't want to risk something like that just yet. I suspect that any kind of coating I could apply would also just peel off almost immediately, anyway.

Any ideas? Or should I just learn to live with it?

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[–] dual_sport_dork 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Before doing anything permanent, consider a little strip of electrical tape. If electrical tape isn't thin enough, Kapton tape is cheap and readily available (and useful!) and is incredibly thin. It might help.

Part of it is resonance throughout the entire metal body components of the knife, as well. A bell doesn't ring just because the clapper hits it, it rings because the whole surface is allowed to vibrate afterwards. So consider adding material to dampen not the contact surfaces themselves, but any large, flat, and hidden surfaces that are -- most importantly -- free of any mechanical interference. This may be easier.

You probably won't find anything marketed as sound insulation that's thin enough, to look into finding generic self adhesive rubber sheet or felt that's thin enough to meet your requirements. I have a knockoff M, and I'm sure there's about 3/16" of clearance around most of the interior of the blade track, possibly excepting the part immediately left and right of the spine.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I knew you'd have some good suggestions! You make a good point about the resonance, and I think trying to dampen that will have a greater impact than the impact zones at the ends of the track. I'll do some experimenting with tapes and see what happens. Thanks for the ideas!