Well I just started writing this rev. and hit a button inadvertantly on my keyboard and presto chango gonzo, so I am starting over. I rebuilt the knife from new parts Josh sent to me. The fella I purchased it from, DracoRapier smoothed the scales a bit to much for my liking. Put the new grippy scales on and now it is the way it was meant to be. Very secure hand hold and withdrawal of the knife from the pocket.
After taking it apart I thoroughly cleaned all the parts and degreased them. Relubed the inside of the pivot, and the washers where they contact the pivot point on the blade. Had a devil of a time getting everything back together correctly for some reason. This is the old school model so you apparantly have to adjust everything a little bit at a time. This includes securing the G10 screws too. It seems that as I left them slightly loose and then sequentially tightened the pivot screws and then the G10 screws everything tightened up the way it should without undue blade play. Which is what I was getting after the first couple of attempts.
I rehsharpened the blade to a very high degree of sharpness. I don't know what it is with ATS34 as compared to 154CM, but I seem to be able to get the 34 much sharper with a very toothy like edge. It will very easily cut a tube of rolled newspaper with lots of bite to the edge. This edge will cleanly shave hair off your arm but you have to be careful because if you use to high of an angle of attack you will end with a nice flesh wound, as I found out.
The blade is very smooth when flipping open or when just using the thumb disc. It just glides like oil on glass. No binding etc. What strikes me about this knife is how over built it is. I really don't think I would have anyproblem at all using this as a pry bar lets say to open paint cans. Which is what I did. Didn't affect anything on the knife. No undue stress on the pivot point or anything. Actually opened only one paint can and it was new so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. Don't normally use my knives for that though.
I have repeatedly cycled the knife through openings with wrist snaps etc with no undue affect either. I have read in other threads here that some makers whom shall remain nameless won't warranty there knives for this. This B/S keeps putting the locking liner in the same place time after time. Matter of fact I am getting full left side lock up when I purchased it and it hasn't budged since I have recieved the knife. That is except when I reassembled the knife after this rebuild. Now that I have it right it is the same as it has always been.
I truthfully don't know if this will be my steady edc. It may be though. I haven't been without it since last week despite the bit of bulk it can cause in the pocket. The robustness of this tool is amazing. Sometimes I think we may be missing the boat here abit on pocket clip types of knives. Everyone wants the latest gadget type of knife but holy crap this thing is about as basic as you can get with a large pocket knife and it is bullet proof to boot. Hell you could defintetly knock someone out with it. As for fit and finish it is absolutely first rate. Everything fits just as it should and there are no usightly blemishes or over runs of the scales and liners. The blade centers perfectly, swings open very smoothly just like my S2K although not as highly polished out as the S2K it is in the same boat exactly. In my opinion two of the best production folders in the liner locking verison to be found today. It doesn't even carry that bad in a pair of wranglers or levis. Keepem sharp
After taking it apart I thoroughly cleaned all the parts and degreased them. Relubed the inside of the pivot, and the washers where they contact the pivot point on the blade. Had a devil of a time getting everything back together correctly for some reason. This is the old school model so you apparantly have to adjust everything a little bit at a time. This includes securing the G10 screws too. It seems that as I left them slightly loose and then sequentially tightened the pivot screws and then the G10 screws everything tightened up the way it should without undue blade play. Which is what I was getting after the first couple of attempts.
I rehsharpened the blade to a very high degree of sharpness. I don't know what it is with ATS34 as compared to 154CM, but I seem to be able to get the 34 much sharper with a very toothy like edge. It will very easily cut a tube of rolled newspaper with lots of bite to the edge. This edge will cleanly shave hair off your arm but you have to be careful because if you use to high of an angle of attack you will end with a nice flesh wound, as I found out.
The blade is very smooth when flipping open or when just using the thumb disc. It just glides like oil on glass. No binding etc. What strikes me about this knife is how over built it is. I really don't think I would have anyproblem at all using this as a pry bar lets say to open paint cans. Which is what I did. Didn't affect anything on the knife. No undue stress on the pivot point or anything. Actually opened only one paint can and it was new so maybe it wasn't that big of a deal. Don't normally use my knives for that though.
I have repeatedly cycled the knife through openings with wrist snaps etc with no undue affect either. I have read in other threads here that some makers whom shall remain nameless won't warranty there knives for this. This B/S keeps putting the locking liner in the same place time after time. Matter of fact I am getting full left side lock up when I purchased it and it hasn't budged since I have recieved the knife. That is except when I reassembled the knife after this rebuild. Now that I have it right it is the same as it has always been.
I truthfully don't know if this will be my steady edc. It may be though. I haven't been without it since last week despite the bit of bulk it can cause in the pocket. The robustness of this tool is amazing. Sometimes I think we may be missing the boat here abit on pocket clip types of knives. Everyone wants the latest gadget type of knife but holy crap this thing is about as basic as you can get with a large pocket knife and it is bullet proof to boot. Hell you could defintetly knock someone out with it. As for fit and finish it is absolutely first rate. Everything fits just as it should and there are no usightly blemishes or over runs of the scales and liners. The blade centers perfectly, swings open very smoothly just like my S2K although not as highly polished out as the S2K it is in the same boat exactly. In my opinion two of the best production folders in the liner locking verison to be found today. It doesn't even carry that bad in a pair of wranglers or levis. Keepem sharp
