Anyone polish knife parts?

K

kamonjj

Joined
Nov 30, 2013
Messages
34
Hello,

I'm relatively new to this forum and knives in general. When I was active duty I carried a gerber 06 auto for years and that always worked for me. It wasn't until recently that I got into knives.

Thanks to this site I picked up a dragonfly 2 with zdp steel and my latest edition, my spyderco southard.

To be honest I wasn't impressed with the flipping action of mine when I got it. The blade was slightly off center which is ok. I knew that going in. I got a great deal on the forums here.

Never the less, I have been building and working on firearms for years. Including full scale 1911 builds and some long range rifles on rem 700 actions.

So today I took apart my southard and polished the washers and cleaned and oiled with gun butter the moving parts.

I must say, the action is tremendously better and my blade is now centered.

Anyone else do these to their knives? Haven't seen any threads about it.

Thanks
J
 
I do it frequently - however, I imagine many do not because it voids the warranty. I typically just rub the phosphor bronze washers (and sometimes the pivot area of the blade and the pivot area of the liners) on my strop until they get nice and shiny/polished. I've also found putting a dab of lube on the detent ball smooths things out tremendously.

When you say you polished the washers on your Southard - those run on bearings, right?
 
If your Southard had washers instead of bearings, you got less of a great deal than you thought.
 
Yes the southard is on bearings but has 2 cupped washers. Mine were dirty and had grime caked to both sides. Just wiping it off didn't get the crud off. So out came the dremmel and flitz polish. I didn't polish the blade or anything else. Just the 2 washers that the bearings run along in the handle slabs.
 
kamonjj said:
Yes the southard is on bearings but has 2 cupped washers. Mine were dirty and had grime caked to both sides. Just wiping it off didn't get the crud off. So out came the dremmel and flitz polish. I didn't polish the blade or anything else. Just the 2 washers that the bearings run along in the handle slabs.
Click to expand...

Ah ok. In that case, yes polishing contact surfaces has consistently yielded favorable results for me.
 
I like to clean knife parts, too. When I take a Sebenza apart, I rub down every part with a Tuff Cloth, including the handle scales. This degreases and cleans the lint off everything. The phosphor bronze washers get a thorough rub down. I can see how a dremel might help when the parts are really gunked up.
 
The best thing that I have found for polishing bronze washers is the Spyderco Sharpmaker extra fine triangular prism. I put a washer on the tip of my finger with the side that touches the blade facing up. I polish, rotate, polish, rotate, etc. until the washer is about 1/2 mirror finish. No need to polish the whole surface (just the high spots). There is less friction this way. I run the system dry, but a light oil wouldn't hurt.
 
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