Cleaning a rivetted folder

mjolnirman · Feb 27, 2009

Hey, so I've always liked the Buck SBMF design, since I can't afford a real strider, and upon learning that they've been discontinued for some time, I quickly hunted one down on the internet. My main concern for it is that the knife is assembled with rivets.

I have tried taking out and putting back blades without seperating the scales before (a la the official way to disassemble a sebenza - btw, why don't they just take one side off first?), and it was very difficult to line up the washer, blade, and pivot hole.

Now I know there are a bunch of rivetted knives out there, so I'm sure there's an efficient way to do this. How do you guys deal with this?

Roger999 · Feb 27, 2009

I'm not a fan of taking apart knives(I always lose screws lol), if there's just tons of lint in riveted folders, I usually just blow it out with compressed air. If it's stuck with gluey gunk and stuff like that then I would wash and scrub it with soapy water then blow all the water out with compressed air and re-oil the knife.

dalefuller · Feb 27, 2009

Like Roger999 said, I haven't found it necessary to d/a a knife in most cases to clean it. Gentle washing, flushing with running water, a blow dryer, some WD40, and then a good lube like Tuff-Glide or MMC do the job for me.

If I'm cleaning a knife that I got on trade, that's what they get. Everything's worked fine so far, even with my woods knives. I have taken knives apart and cleaned them, but that was just to see if I could do it.

tholiver · Feb 27, 2009

Roger999 said:
I'm not a fan of taking apart knives(I always lose screws lol), if there's just tons of lint in riveted folders, I usually just blow it out with compressed air. If it's stuck with gluey gunk and stuff like that then I would wash and scrub it with soapy water then blow all the water out with compressed air and re-oil the knife.

Toothpicks or those long bamboo stick/skewers you find in dollar stores are great for reaching into and cleaning out dirt in hard to reach places.
And you can custom trim them to fit in almost any knifes hard to reach places!

mjolnirman · Feb 27, 2009

hm, when I take my knives apart, there's usually a lot of gunk that worked its way onto the face of the washers. how do you guys scrub that?

spidyman · Mar 2, 2009

mjolnirman said:
hm, when I take my knives apart, there's usually a lot of gunk that worked its way onto the face of the washers. how do you guys scrub that?

You've got the pivot too lose if debris is getting on the faces of the washers.

I clean my edc's under running water as hot as I can stand then work the blade a few times then turn up the temp as hot as it will go and let it run for a minute or two then let the knife air dry, the hot water will make it self dry very rapidly, then I lube with militec-1 oil.

mjolnirman · Mar 2, 2009

alright, thanks for the replies

rmfnla · Mar 3, 2009

spidyman said:
You've got the pivot too lose if debris is getting on the faces of the washers.

I clean my edc's under running water as hot as I can stand then work the blade a few times then turn up the temp as hot as it will go and let it run for a minute or two then let the knife air dry, the hot water will make it self dry very rapidly, then I lube with militec-1 oil.

I thought I was the only one who did that!

I sometimes will use WD40 to remove the water and I lube w/ mineral oil, but the hot water trick really works.

I guess great minds really do think alike...

Macchina · Mar 4, 2009

spidyman said:
I clean my edc's under running water as hot as I can stand then work the blade a few times then turn up the temp as hot as it will go and let it run for a minute or two then let the knife air dry, the hot water will make it self dry very rapidly, then I lube with militec-1 oil.

rmfnla said:
I thought I was the only one who did that!

I sometimes will use WD40 to remove the water and I lube w/ mineral oil, but the hot water trick really works.

I guess great minds really do think alike...

I thought I was the only one who did that as well, hot water makes a big difference. I also add a drop of Dawn dish soap and work it into the pivot to clean out all of the old oil. If you open the knife after you rinse it and swing it as fast as you can (wife says I look crazy) centrifugal force will clear all the water out of the pivot. Then a single drop of Miltec-1 in the pivot, work it in, and clean up all the excess with a q-tip.