Making an Assisted Opening Knife?

J

jaymeister99

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Sep 14, 2010
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Are there any suppliers that sell parts (particularly springs) to make AO knives? Also any tutorials on making these?
 
Knifekits.com sells a button lock kit and springs Look under under folders for DDR-3BL and parts for same. Could that system be used?
 
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All the parts will be made in the construction of the knife...just like in a lock back. It isn't really a stock parts type of thing, as far as I know.

You can order round and sometimes square spring rod and piano wire from most knife supply catalogs and places like McMasters.
 
I don't think there are any assisted opening mechanisms in the public domain.

Does anybody know of one?
 
When I first started looking into knife making, an AO knife is what I really wanted to make. I picked up a couple cheap
($5) ones at a knife show just to take apart. One of them has a long flat spring that was cut out of flat stock. I have read threads that suggest using that type of spring and not the wire type. What I'd like to do one day is to just trace the parts and cut them out and see if they will work when I put them together. Maybe do that several times, making changes along the way.

Not what you were looking for, but maybe it'll help.
Maybe something from this site

http://www.assistedknife.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/26098
 
ive taken apart many AO knives with various different firing mechanisms, the better ones use a 15/16"x3/32" extension spring mounted in the back spine of the knife and the cheaper flea market ones use a wireform spring mounted under the scales. ive tried using hardware store extension springs for repair and found them to be underpowered however these where going into a stock setup, im sure you can modify your custom build to better accomidate a hardware store spring...perhaps with a shorter pull bar (so as to pull the spring further) or upgrade to slightly larger heavier gauge wire extension spring. for example 1 3/16" X 1/8" spring. I found these at my local hardware store (TM Hardware.) hope this was helpful. matt
 
also if u decide to make your own wireform spring i recommend using square wire as its stronger, perhaps .04" wire diameter would give it a healthy snap, if youd like i can email you a cad drawing of a wireform i copied from a flea market knife. its diameter is .01 which was weak so experiment with different size wire. best of luck matt
 
Railrider1920 said:
When I first started looking into knife making, an AO knife is what I really wanted to make. I picked up a couple cheap
($5) ones at a knife show just to take apart. One of them has a long flat spring that was cut out of flat stock. I have read threads that suggest using that type of spring and not the wire type. What I'd like to do one day is to just trace the parts and cut them out and see if they will work when I put them together. Maybe do that several times, making changes along the way.

Not what you were looking for, but maybe it'll help.
Maybe something from this site

http://www.assistedknife.com/index.cfm/fa/categories.main/parentcat/26098
Click to expand...

Thanks, actually thats pretty close to what I was looking for. I was considering buying a cheap AO to pull apart, but I didn't think there were too many cheap ones out there. I'll buy one of these cheapies and figure it out.
 
mattguitarman13 said:
also if u decide to make your own wireform spring i recommend using square wire as its stronger, perhaps .04" wire diameter would give it a healthy snap, if youd like i can email you a cad drawing of a wireform i copied from a flea market knife. its diameter is .01 which was weak so experiment with different size wire. best of luck matt
Click to expand...

Are there any good AOs you can recommend to take apart? Say under $30?
 
the cheap one i pulled apart was a platinum collection from wildbillswholesale.com it was $6.99 i bought it more to practice my filework on (which actually turned out pretty good, vine design) its a low quality knife but after a little dolling up it grabs peoples attention. i actually use it as my EDC at the moment because it was cheap enough im not scared to ruin it. Yeah usually thats where i look for tear apart knives is on wholesale sites or flea markets. the have crkt lift offs on there for 35 bucks. as stated by nebulae amazons also good if your looking for something a little better quality.
 
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