Reblade of a Buck 110 with a Damascus blade not made by Buck knives.

[Redrummd]

I have done just a few reblades of knives and this one is challenging as it is not a factroy blade and there are some fit and geometry issues that arose. I thought it would be interesting to take pictures as I worked through the issues.

What is not shown is the pressing out of the factory pin using a arbor press. I don't like to hammer them out with a drive pin as I think that stretches the holes even more than the already are from the factory pin being set originally.

I then file flat the inside of the bolster at the point the pivot pin was origianlly set as there can be burrs or a ring from the bronze pin bushing from the original blade.

The first photo shows the rounded press pin I use to round out the top of the front bolster holes to tighten them up a bit. After the factory pins are hammered in the pin holes are fairly loose on a new pin. Putting in this tightening shoulder helps prevent a ring from showing around the replacement pin. It also help in getting the blade and bushing near centered for a test fitting.

The 2nd and 3rd photos show the test fitting. In the picture of the front bolster you can see the front of the rocker arm and the blade are both a bit high but close enough to sand flat to the bolster and I can't change the location of the hole in the Damascus blade so if it does not get better when the pin is peined tight there is no other option anyway.

The rear looks really close to where it should be so I make a big assumption that the geometry was good to go. I should note now that this was a big incorrect assumption and I should have opened and closed the knife a few times to verify all was good to go. I won't make that mistake again.

I shimmed behind and in front of the pivot pin with .002 shim stock before peining the front pin tight. I do this to try and prevent blade pinching at the bronze bushing. this is a bit more important on this Damascus blade as it is textured and my micrometer showed it could be a couple of thousands thicker than the factory blade but the etch could be causing a bit of this as it is difficult to get the same reading repeatedly.

[Redrummd]

The first photo shows the four .002 shims in place and how much the pin stock was expanded to get a really tight fit and hopefully no visible ring.

The 2nd photos shows the blade ended up perfectly centered when closed.

Now the problem, when closed the rocker arm is lower in the back and higher in the front than what the test fitting seemed to indicate it was going to be. This means that the rounded section of the back of the blade where the locking cam rides has too big of a diameter. The hole in the blade is probably a few thousandths off from the point it should be. If I had done a open and close test fit I could have sanded and polished this part of the blade to get it a bit closer to how it should fit.

Fortunately I had not yet set the center pivot pin so the answer is to slightly modifiy the rocker arm locking cam. I will get to that next.

[Redrummd]

I put the knife into a vise and pulled the pivot pin. I then put a taper onto the pin so that I could take it in and out quickly.

I then looked to see where the cam was riding and it was easy to see as one of the etching "ribs" on the back if the blade was leaving a visible mark. I took off just a few thousandths and the fitting issue was pretty much resolved. The rear fit looks about right as from the factory and the knife has good snap and locks up really tight now.

[Redrummd]

I next sanded the peined pin down and smoothed the front bolsters to 600 grit and there does not seem the be any ring showing so hopefully that will be what I get when I get to the polishing stages.

[Redrummd]

So, after all this I also see that the blade is ever so slightly "proud". This is fixed by smoothing the bump stop area shown in the photos below. I used a bit of blue to get a rub mark of the exact spot to sand.

[Redrummd]

Here is the blade after sanding the high spot and it is now sitting just right in the well.

This all looks like a lot of work but it only took a little over two hours to do all of this.

[rbrace]

Hey thanks for all of the pictures and knife info

[hohenstreetroa]

One of Michael's reblades... He does amazing work.
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