Conversion to Assisted Opener

D

Diligence

Joined
Jan 18, 2000
Messages
275
Have any of you fine folk been successful at installing either a torsion bar or other means to create an assisted opener from a regular folder?

For example, wondering if I could modify one of my Benchmades with a torsion bar to create my own Assisted opener?

I do have a couple of blades that I would like to try this on, including a Buck 110, BM350, etc, but I am not interested in conversion to full auto.

Tried to search the forums, but the search engine doesn't like me.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Cheers,
D
 
Let’s see if we can find the right forum …
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Not impossible, but certainly not easy I imagine. I would think that the Buck would be nearly impossible, but I do love to be proved wrong.

The two main considerations are the space and required tolerances for the torsion bar, and also the shape of the blade around the pivot.

If you look at an AO, you will see that the blade has been ground in such a way that moving it slightly will almost drop the bar onto it and fire it out.

If you manage to form that shape, find space for a torsion bar, and actually make or find a suitable bar, then you should be good to go!
 
Anything is possible, I'd think... but it'd take some heavy-duty engineering to make it happen, as well as milling and wire-forming tools.
 
You might get lucky. I took an early Kershaw 1560 in to Kershaw and told them the AO was inop. They installed a torsion bar and told me that that early model was not an AO but as long as I wanted one, they modified it for me (free). It's possible that Benchmade might have a torsion bar for that knife if they make AOs in your model.
 
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