Do you disassemble and oil your newly purchased knives?

ronaldvo

ronaldvo

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I do this on used knives I buy but curious what everyone does for brand new knives straight from the factory? I bought the CJRB Pyrite recently, wasn’t happy with how it felt so I opened it up and oiled the bearings. Still wasn’t a fan.

Just picked up a Bestechman Dundee and this thing feels like a dream (a $40 dream) out of the box. I don’t think I’ll take this one apart for a while.
 
knarfeng said:
I sharpen and lubricate every knife I buy, pretty much as soon as it's out of the shipping box.
In some 65 years of carrying and using knives, I don't remember ever feeling a need to disassemble a knife.
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Your experience is a multiple of mine for knives. You oil without disassembling? Typically I oil the bearings and the detent track. Are you talking about folding knives or fixed blades? Curious how you oil without disassembling if you’re talking about folders.
 
It depends on the knife, but I do this with a lot of the knives I get. Certainly if it's a used knife; I'll want to clean it out, lubricate it, and deal with any rust that may have started to form. I also do this with new Twosun knives since they come doused with oil that slowly seeps out of every crevice.

I'll admit that sometimes I'll also do this just to geek out over a really nice new knife. In my opinion, you don't fully appreciate the precision of a CRK or Arno Bernard until you take one apart and put it back together. Some knives like CKF's or higher end Rikes also have a lot of really nicely-executed parts that you don't see until the knife is apart.
 
ronaldvo said:
Your experience is a multiple of mine for knives. You oil without disassembling? Typically I oil the bearings and the detent track. Are you talking about folding knives or fixed blades? Curious how you oil without disassembling if you’re talking about folders.
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Folders.
It requires a drop of oil on each side of the blade at the pivot pin, then open and close the knife a few times, then wipe away any excess.
You want to be stingy when applying oil. Oil traps dirt and grit. Dirt is not good for any kind of moving part.

Every once in a while I get a new knife which has polishing compound still in the action. In that case I wash the entire knife under warm water with soap, and open and close it a few times. Then I rinse in water to remove any remaining soap, then rinse with Isopropyl alcohol to remove the water, then spritz with WD-40 and wipe dry, then apply the drops of oil as above.
Works like a champ. No disassembly required.
 
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Every swiss army knife that arrives comes ready to perform, and apart from those, Its kind of hard to disassemble a Morakniv 😏
Especially the classic 01 I just got. I might drip some mineral oil into the butt of it though..
 
ronaldvo said:
Your experience is a multiple of mine for knives. You oil without disassembling? Typically I oil the bearings and the detent track. Are you talking about folding knives or fixed blades? Curious how you oil without disassembling if you’re talking about folders.
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There is nothing to it. Simply put a drop of oil in the pivot area. It will make its way to the detent track but if you want to make sure it does, put another drop on or near the track.

Disassembly for cleaning is a whole different story.
 
Disassembly is tricky business, a buddy of mine did it once during a camping trip after cleaning some caught trout with a kershaw, he brought all the fix'ns (oil, rag, tool etc) because the whole thing was planned out, including dirtying up the knife 🤔

unfortunately he dropped a couple screws on the ground and after an hour of inebriated searching the hunt was over, gone baby gone--- and that was that.
Tricky business it can be.
 
knarfeng said:
Folders.
It requires a drop of oil on each side of the blade at the pivot pin, then open and close the knife a few times, then wipe away any excess.
You want to be stingy when applying oil. Oil traps dirt and grit. Dirt is not good for any kind of moving part.

Every once in a while I get a new knife which has polishing compound still in the action. In that case I wash the entire knife under warm water with soap, and open and close it a few times. Then I rinse in water to remove any remaining soap, then rinse with Isopropyl alcohol to remove the water, then spritz with WD-40 and wipe dry, then apply the drops of oil as above.
Works like a champ. No disassembly required.
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Interesting. Thanks for the tips.
 
Other than my traditionals, the only folder I oil, or grease, is my Sebby 21. And other than the 21, I only disassemble if there's an issue.
 
No NEVER. The only time I get this far into a brand new knife is for a blade swap .
e.g., REX 121 into the Sage SPY27 Cobalt Blue G-10 handle .
REX 45 blade into Para 3 Black G-10 handle.
15V blade into Midnight Blue G-10 Manix handle .
you get the idea .

I do use knife pivot doctor in a can (WD-40) to hose down and thin out that awful thick lube Benchmade puts in all their axis lock knives .
For instance I have a Mini Grip that would not free up ; always sluggish dropping and kind of unpredictable even with the pivot too loose.

I put various oils in to it including a micro drop or two of my beloved Starrett Instrument Oil .
Still sucked for like a year or two .
Then . . .
a micro blast from the Old WD.
It has been a dropper / swinger ever since .

. . . as so many are always peeing their pants to tell me : WD-40 IS NOT A LUBRICANT ! ! !

unhua . . . well what ever you feel comfortable calling what it does . . . it does the trick for me in so many mechanisms etc .
(((that and it says "lubricant " right on the back of the can : """LUBRICATES MOVING PARTS""")))

funny how some guy does a YouTube some where and suddenly so many are ready to parrot it at the drop of a ball bearing just so they can feign superior knowledge with no actual trial and error to check the facts.

OK rant over .
I feel so much better now .
 
knarfeng said:
I don't remember ever feeling a need to disassemble a knife.
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I think for some it is kind of a hobby / puzzle thing more than an actual NEED to make the knife significantly better .
I am a full time mechanic and have been all my life so I get enough "puzzle" building in my work .

In the same breath there seems to be a human ?need? ?attraction? to getting a new thing and then buying the special cool guy in the know elixir , sold at a laughably exorbitant price , and then administering the item with the necessary elixir . . .
. . . it goes without saying that there is a NEED to do this REGULARLY / WEEKLY or BEFORE EVERY USE of said item .
God some of the drive chains I have seen that are COVERED with lube slung everywhere with buckets of grit all stuck to it wearing out the gears and chain .

STOP THAT !
 
You becha! Every knife I buy/receive (either new or from the secondary market) is disassembled, cleaned and lubricated without fail. May or may not actually require “service” but I enjoy the process and it has become my procedure. 😊
 
Whether new or used, I would never use a tool to take apart a knife or apply any lube to it, unless there's an obvious reason or need to do so.

And there have been only a few out of the many knives in my collection that have required such treatment. 🤷
 
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Tsujigiri said:
It depends on the knife, but I do this with a lot of the knives I get. Certainly if it's a used knife; I'll want to clean it out, lubricate it, and deal with any rust that may have started to form. I also do this with new Twosun knives since they come doused with oil that slowly seeps out of every crevice.

I'll admit that sometimes I'll also do this just to geek out over a really nice new knife. In my opinion, you don't fully appreciate the precision of a CRK or Arno Bernard until you take one apart and put it back together. Some knives like CKF's or higher end Rikes also have a lot of really nicely-executed parts that you don't see until the knife is apart.
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Warm water, dish soap, nail brush and done.

Has worked for me for all my old slipjoints and modern folders.


As for your original question. I have a Insingo Inkosi. Bought in 2017. Designed to be disassembled. To this day I have not taken it apart. Never had the need.
 
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