Bought a small clapping vice and an 1 oz pein hammer, some sandpaper, and fixed the blade play on my case medium stockman and queen canoe, hopefully for good. The only problem is that after all the squeezing and hammering, though light, the blades are harder to open, but i'm hoping they will break in after some use.
Also, the queen main blade sits very very close to the small blade when closed, a bit of rubbing comes into play if i slightly flex it towards it when closing.
Jack, most likely you've made the knife too tight with the squeezing and hammering, the scales are binding the tang too tightly. There are a couple of easy fixes for that. First, you have to determine at what points the blade is tight, if it's too tight at both the opening and closing positions, you need to free up the blade a bit. Here's how:
First, a word on the knife parts;
The scales are the liners, NOT the handle material. Handle materials are the "covers" or "handles" (of course). This is a big faux pas among collectors and even some handle manufacturers. Anyone working in the knife industry immediately knows a forumite's talking to them when they hear a cover being referred to as a scale. DON'T be one of those people! (I'm referring to everyone here
)
The blade back is the spine of the blade, tang is the flat section that rides in the knife, shoulder is the point at which the tang meets the ground blade, kick is the area on the tang that contacts the backspring, usually raised to a point, choil is the small cutout area at the base of the blade edge just above the kick.
Front edge of a knife is the area of the handle that the blade drops into, back is where you'll find the backspring.
OK, now, to loosen the blade a bit you want to open the knife blade halfway and place the blade at approximately a 45 degree angle against the edge of a hard surface. You want the kick, along with the blade edge, to be in contact with the surface, but it's the kick that absorbs most of the impact. You need some kind of mallet for this, preferably a plastic headed one so that you don't damage the blade, or a smaller headed peining hammer. I've used a regular claw hammer in the pics since that's all I could get my hands on with the light ebbing away, but that's total overkill and not recommended. Strike the blade spine LIGHTLY just above the shoulder, and do it straight down, not at an angle as it looks in the picture. What you're doing is giving the blade a slight jolt, with the angle giving the knife a slight twist and loosening the scales at the bolsters. You want to do this lightly so you don't wind up with a rocker again, or worse pulling the pins through. You can then turn the knife so you're going from the opposite side, and give it a slightly lighter tap to even things up. It shouldn't take much, just a tap, if it doesn't get better try it again a
little harder. Work the blades open and closed to see if this helps, and if there are two blades involved try it on the tightest blade first, then work both blades to even things up:
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If you've got a blade that snaps open fine but closes with difficulty, like it's binding up, oftentimes all you need is a little tweek to get things working. You'll need a narrow well tapered blade for this, such as a muskrat blade. Open the problem knife blade halfway and slip the tip of the muskrat blade between the tang and the OUTSIDE scale (I know I've got it against the center scale in the photo but that's just for a clear pic). While holding the tip in tightly, but not moving it, pull the problem blade closed very slightly to approximately halfway to the closed position, or until you feelk a bit of resistance, and then pull the mukrat blade out. This is kind of a fluid motion, don't go too slow. What you're doing is giving the blade very slight amount of room to drop down, unnoticeable but it helps. Don't push the blade too far into the knife or too far into the tang, you just want to catch the tip of the blade closer to the shoulder of the problem blade. The pics should clarify things a bit. Note how I'm holding the subject knife blade so that I can pull it down a bit before pulling the musky blade out. DON"T use any kind of fat blade for this or you'll wind up bending the scale:
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For a blade that's a little off center when closed, you can crink it. Normally tangs are annealed to spring temper, along with a bit of the blade, usually about 1/8" or so up from the shoulder. This is the area you want to bend. Open the blade halfway. This is important, opening it all the way risks losening the blade since you're torqueing against the outer edge of the bolster, always a no no. Place the knife down on a flat surface with whatever direction you want the blade to bend facing you. Put something a tad forgiving, like a piece of leather or soft wood like pine under the blade about halfway up the blade or less from the shoulder. The leather should be about 3/8" thick, you want the blade to be
fairly parallel to the work surface, doesn't have to be exact. Again I'd definitely recommend a plastic headed mallet for this. Not a tiny one, I'm talking one with heads about an inch and a quarter across, you need a little heft. Now you want to hit the blade just above the shoulder, at the soft spot, and remeber to check that leather piece before you hit. The closer it is to the shoulder the better, but you still need some room for the blade to flex. Too close to the tip and you risk bending the blade too far up or worse snapping it. The area that I have the leather (No I don't use a key chain, but it
would work in a snap!
) is about where I'd have it for this blade. Small blades don't need a very hard hit, larger blades of course need more umpf. Start light and see how it goes, you can always go harder. If it goes too far just turn it over and hit the other side, although you want to hit it lighter or you'll just keep going back and forth until the blade snaps. There is a bit of a learning curve for all these steps, you need to develop a feel for it, but you'll get it. In the photo below the knife blade points to the area you want to hit, you want to angle the mallet so only the edge hits the blade. This is shown in picture two, again don't use a huge hammer like that, I'll post a pic tomorrow of what I use. Also, there should be nothing in contact with the blade between the bolster and the leather piece. The picture makes it seem that the notch on the stiddy is in contact with the tang, but it's not.
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Good Luck!!
Eric
PS- Here's a video of Trevor Ablett, note after he assembles the knife the blades are a bit tight and he employes the same methods as above to loosen it. He holds the knife a bit differently but the method is the same. Now HE'S a real master!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc9ru-iQnR0&list=UUBzHdUkDWkF49fh3xKeOblA&index=4&feature=plcp
