Buck 110 pivot material?

M

madmath

Joined
Mar 19, 2005
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123
The bolsters of the 110 are made out of brass.
The pivot of the 110 is also made of brass.
On the photo and in reality I see however a colour difference between the bolsters and the pivot.
The bolsters are relatively soft and my question is, is the pivot made of a special brass? A kind that can withstand more force and is stronger than the bolsters?
I made a brass cleaning rod for my old Armisport model 1863 .58 Springfield rifle and this brass has quite some flex and doesn't bend or damage as easily as the 110 bolsters.
I expect the 110 pivot being made of such brass but maybe anyone knows for sure? :confused:

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Very happy with my 6th 110. :)
 
Good question. I would like to hear about this too. Like the 110 with finger-grooves too!
 
math, I'd like to see where you're getting your information. Because the lock bar and pivot pin on a 110 has been of stainless steel for the last 45yrs.. DM
 
David Martin said:
math, I'd like to see where you're getting your information. Because the lock bar and pivot pin on a 110 has been of stainless steel for the last 45yrs.. DM
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David, I am almost certain that math is referring to the pin that holds the blade in and not the lock bar pin.
 
Just my opinion, but I think the brass is the same. You can buff them up so nicely that the blade pivot pin is invisible.

Strength..... It is a decent thickness of rod, encased on either end by the bolsters, with a small section passing through the blade.
That leaves a very small section where the actual blade pivoting occurs, and would be very difficult to bend or distort.
then with the blade locked open, the lockbar adds yet another element of strength.
 
Tin Sue, After reading his statements again, I think your correct. The one I was describing is the rocker pin. DM
 
DesertChris said:
Just my opinion, but I think the brass is the same. You can buff them up so nicely that the blade pivot pin is invisible.

Strength..... It is a decent thickness of rod, encased on either end by the bolsters, with a small section passing through the blade.
That leaves a very small section where the actual blade pivoting occurs, and would be very difficult to bend or distort.
then with the blade locked open, the lockbar adds yet another element of strength.
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Aren't there also a set of bushings around the pivot?
 
I totally destroyed a 110 I got off the bay for next to nothing,I want to see what it could actually handle.I will say I never thought a 110could take that much abuse and still be functional.I battoned it through a piece of oak and used a hammer on the blade spine ,and it was loose but the lock held up and the knife was still useable.I am not worried about needing a beefier blade pivot pin on a 110,it's one of the strongest parts of the whole knife!
 
Thanks for your responces.

Looking around a bit on the net for knowledge about brass I came on wikipedia .
Interesting long read, brass is not simple brass, there are four kinds of brass classes and a lot of different brass aloys for many different applications. :cool:

Looking further I found this about brass , here also some info about nickel-silver alloys.

My search on BF gave that the blade has bronze bushings and the pivot is made of brass. One thing I'm sure of, the bolsters and the pivot are a different brass class.
The pivot has a darker colour than the pivot.

I also found this: patina formulas for brass, bronze and copper

Math :)
 
I actually snapped the brass pivot on my 110. But it still works beautifully for me. And have eased off the hard work for it. I swung it at at a thick plam frawm branch. Which i had done before but this one was a little to dried out. It Entered .5" and heard a ping. I'm just lucky my girlfriends gift to me is worse for the ware but not broke. Bad part is I don't trust sending things through the mail to be fixed. Better having a slightly broke knife, than no knife at all.
 
samclaymore said:
I actually snapped the brass pivot on my 110. But it still works beautifully for me. And have eased off the hard work for it. I swung it at at a thick plam frawm branch. Which i had done before but this one was a little to dried out. It Entered .5" and heard a ping. I'm just lucky my girlfriends gift to me is worse for the ware but not broke. Bad part is I don't trust sending things through the mail to be fixed. Better having a slightly broke knife, than no knife at all.
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Just send it priority mail with tracking #
The post office takes much more care of them that way!

Or

Get some brass round bar stock (I think it is 1/8")
Use a pin punch to drive out the broken pin, cut a new pin from the brass bar, and tap it in.
Use a peening hammer to secure it, and then sand and polish up the bolsters.... pretty easy to fix.
 
This worked perfect for me. No issues. You could also give this brass rod some hardening and a cryogenic treatment. Which enhances it's abilities. DM
 
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I've used the pin bushing as well. Those came about to prevent the 110 to be use as a 'gravity knife'. I know they were in use by the first year date stamp. DM
 
To the OP, here is a Buck employee describing the brass which the bolsters are formed of:
Jeff Hubbard said:
Brian,
Sintered Sides...
Our Brass and Nickel Silver 110/112 liners are made by a powdered metals process.
1st step is to mix the powders into the metal type you want.
2nd step is to pack the powder into a mold in a high tonnage press. The parts is formed, but it is like a sugar cube.... Squeeze it and it goes poof....
3rd Sinter (heat Treat) the metal powder into a solid mass...
4th step 'coin' the part to final dimensions. Coining is a secondary strike of the part shape to compensate for shrinkage during sintering. This allows for tight dimension control.

In a nutshell...

Jeff

------------------
Jeff "Without data it's just another opinion" Hubbard
JeffH@buckknives.com
www.buckknives.com
Watch for Pete's Custom Knife Shoppe on www.buckknives.com
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DesertChris said:
Yep, one bronze bushing in the blade. :)

I do not know when they started using them,
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I have read in the timeline that the bushings came into being with the three dot stamp ( 1980 ) but this is an un-answered question I have asked about, as I have a couple of 112 two dot blades on my bench with bushings, (I can supply photo's) The early bushings were steel, I don't know exactly when they switched to bronze...




David Martin said:
I've used the pin bushing as well. Those came about to prevent the 110 to be use as a 'gravity knife'. I know they were in use by the first year date stamp. DM
Click to expand...

Actually, the change that was implemented to overcome the "gravity knife" issue, was a change to the radius of the tang that the spring rides on through the opening and closing arc, increasing spring tension throughout this action, the bushings came into play to smooth out the opening and closing action issues brought about by the radius change.
 
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