Gary W. Graley
“Imagination is more important than knowledge"
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Mar 2, 1999
- Messages
- 27,665
Ever have a folder that no longer flips as good as it once did? The problem might be that the area around the detent setup has become filled with debris/dust bunnies. The pocket can collect/generate an unusual amount of dust and it seems to gravitate into the crevices of your folder's inner mechanics almost as if by magic.
The ideal way is to take the knife apart and clean it thoroughly but that can be a chore and possible risk of being cut, but then that's always a risk. So one thing you can do is to take one of those thin bamboo skewers and whittle the end down so it will fit down in the gap of the lockbar so you can 'dig' out any material that might have fallen into the detent hole that is in the blade.
Also clean as much as you can looking around the stop pin area and the pivot pin area, some canned air might help this out too. Some will use running hot water to flush out the entire pivot area but just be sure to blow out the water so it doesn't cause any rusting!
My folder recently didn't have that old 'Snap' like it used to when I went to flip the blade out, reason was dust/dirt had gotten down into the detent hole and so the detent ball wasn't able to drop down into the hole any longer. The tension that the detent ball creates by you trying to force it out of the hole provides the necessary tension that after you overcome it the blade then flies open and locks up. After I used that skewer to dig the dust out, it works fine again, I didn't want to disassemble the knife if I didn't need to.
I didn't take the original dirty pivot area photos, but here you can see it is starting to gather again.
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr
Scrape and blow out what dirt you can around the pivot pin and area there
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr
as you slowly move the blade to the closed position, you can just see the detent hole in the blade, take a thinly carved point of the skewer to slip between the lock bar to dig out the dust that has fallen into the detent hole.
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickr
G2
The ideal way is to take the knife apart and clean it thoroughly but that can be a chore and possible risk of being cut, but then that's always a risk. So one thing you can do is to take one of those thin bamboo skewers and whittle the end down so it will fit down in the gap of the lockbar so you can 'dig' out any material that might have fallen into the detent hole that is in the blade.
Also clean as much as you can looking around the stop pin area and the pivot pin area, some canned air might help this out too. Some will use running hot water to flush out the entire pivot area but just be sure to blow out the water so it doesn't cause any rusting!
My folder recently didn't have that old 'Snap' like it used to when I went to flip the blade out, reason was dust/dirt had gotten down into the detent hole and so the detent ball wasn't able to drop down into the hole any longer. The tension that the detent ball creates by you trying to force it out of the hole provides the necessary tension that after you overcome it the blade then flies open and locks up. After I used that skewer to dig the dust out, it works fine again, I didn't want to disassemble the knife if I didn't need to.
I didn't take the original dirty pivot area photos, but here you can see it is starting to gather again.
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on FlickrScrape and blow out what dirt you can around the pivot pin and area there
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on Flickras you slowly move the blade to the closed position, you can just see the detent hole in the blade, take a thinly carved point of the skewer to slip between the lock bar to dig out the dust that has fallen into the detent hole.
Untitled by GaryWGraley, on FlickrG2
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