Detent Ball???

[uilleann]

I am not happy with the action on my boker kwaiken. There is too much drag on the detent ball to the knife tang. I have polished the tang, lubed the tang and the ball, played with the lock bar tension as far as I dare. I even tried to flatten/polish the ball.

So I popped the ball out with a small centr punch. Came out easily. Measured it and am ordering a SS and Ceramic version to see if that makes a difference.

I figured I would put the old SS ball back in while I wait for the new ones. Here is the surprise. It popped back in with a click. There was no gradual movement in. Does Boker peen the edges of that hole?

I am thinking of pushing the ball in further to ease the drag on the blade tang. I figured I would check here first.

 

[REK Knives]

The ceramic vs steel probably won't make a difference at all. Be careful removing and reinstalling, it will end up falling out if there is not enough grab and resistance (the click makes me think it's not in there well).

What is probably happening is that the detent ball is sitting out too far so when the blade closes it pushes the lock bar out and into the scale/lock bar stabilizer (generally speaking) which causes unneeded force between the blade tang and detent ball. Making the detent ball seated deeper may or may not work, done improperly will make you have detent play when closed.