- Joined
- Nov 1, 2003
- Messages
- 228
I recently bought this knife and thought I'd share a few pics, and a little bit about how it works. When I first decided I wanted an Emerson/Vallotton conversion, I searched endlessly for any info or reviews everywhere on the net; didn't really find much and nothing really specific on the cqc-7 conversion. From what I learned, it was a hit or miss with not much consistency unfortunately. Thankfully, i think I have a hit on (in) my hands. So here's some info for anyone who's curious about this knife.
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_main_sm.jpg
Of all the Emersons the cqc-7 is my favorite, and I like tanto blade styles a lot. I've had one now for well over a year as an edc and love it. And double-action autos are the coolest (I also own an lcc and some day hope to afford a few custom D/As). So what better combination? Despite some people's opinions about the conversion jobs being flacky, mine's still holding up pretty well after several hundered openings. What I like about this knife is how covert it is Unless one knows what markings to look for, there's no way they're going to figure it out. And it just sounds neat the way the cqc-7 fires open with the liner lock. Microtechs are certainly on top when it comes to production autos, but I just don't get the same acoustic satisfaction
Disassembly
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_blades_sm.jpg
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_pivot_sm.jpg
This pic shows what Mr. Valloton has done to the blade tang (note the extra slot). You'll see another pic showing why this was done below, but in a few words he had to make room for the spring's trap door bar by sliding the blade stopping pin forward. One disadvantage here with this extra slot is the difficulty in interchanging blades.
For the pivot image above, I show this here to illustrate how the blade was removed. It seems the liners are permanently sealed together, or maybe screw mounted to the release mechanism. But the pivot screw can still be popped out:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_leaf_eng_sm.jpg
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_leaf_dis_sm.jpg
So as you might have guessed, the conversion is basically a leaf spring release mechanism with a trap door like metal bar holding the spring in place. Pushing the scale to the right causes the bar to slide forward and release the spring. The spring then whacks the blade open at its ricasso (not the nearby slot as you might assume). Simple =)
Here's a view of the front scale removed, showing the spring release mechanism:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_mech_sm.jpg
This is the spring release mechanism that makes the conversion possible. It appears to be mounted to the liner with two flathead screws, but I didn't want to find out and unscrew the mount just yet (out of fear mostly
). Also notice the underside of the scale which is hollowed out slightly to fit over the spring release mount. Looking at this mechanism more closely, it is composed of two pieces. The top piece is the trap door bar and arm, which extends into a right angle that connects to the bottom piece. As you can see, moving this bottom piece to the right (see pic below) moves the trap door forward and releases the spring. Take a look here:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_mech_action.jpg
The bottom piece appears to provide the tension (notice the two tension bars) needed to force the trap door bar and scale back to their original positions. Also, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think that is rust on this piece. Looks more like burnt metal to me. What kind of steel this is I haven't a clue.
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_side_sm.jpg
What appears to be different on the back side is the third hole (my unmodified cqc-7a only has two screw holes on this side). Besides this, nothing else is different.
And finally, here is the knife completely disassembled:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_dis_sm.jpg
What the significance of #9 is I'm not sure. Maybe this is knife #9 in the Emerson conversion series? A nice thought but I highly doubt it
Well this is pretty much it. It's a simple yet innovative D/A design, I think.
Complaints
As with anything, there are some complaints that I have already:
The pivot spacers and frame bar are plastic! Unless I'm missing something here, why couldn't Emerson at least use aluminum for the frame bar and brass for the pivots? Despite this my other edc cqc-7 has been holding up very well (no blade play, smooth maunal opening action). Also, I like tanto blades styles but why o why couldn't Emerson do something other than chisel ground? I've grown to like it though.
For the conversion, the only complaint I have is a minor aesthetic one. To make the G10 scale movable, Butch reversed the blade pivot screw and then drilled a small hole the same diameter as the pivot nut into the scale. So the real pivot nut is inside/underneath the scale and a fake one is mounted on top. This all sounds complicated but what I'm trying to say is the fake nut is plastic. This kind of bugs me, for the money I paid I would have expected metal instead. Again not a major big deal for me.
Lastly, I think it wouldn't hurt to have a safety feature on the knife. Most autos are prone to misfire, especially D/A knives. This is just my opinion but the main use for auto-released knives is mostly for convenience (or showing off), not for some tactical reason. I can deploy a folder's blade out just as a fast manually if needed. So why not a safety button? This is mostly a gripe with all autos as I've had a few misfire on me over the years.
Conclusion
I really like this knife a lot and so far it's been solid. No problems have yet surfaced that some people pointed out in the forums. I've only had the knife for two weeks (as of writing this review) and am keeping my fingers crossed.
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_main_sm.jpg
Of all the Emersons the cqc-7 is my favorite, and I like tanto blade styles a lot. I've had one now for well over a year as an edc and love it. And double-action autos are the coolest (I also own an lcc and some day hope to afford a few custom D/As). So what better combination? Despite some people's opinions about the conversion jobs being flacky, mine's still holding up pretty well after several hundered openings. What I like about this knife is how covert it is Unless one knows what markings to look for, there's no way they're going to figure it out. And it just sounds neat the way the cqc-7 fires open with the liner lock. Microtechs are certainly on top when it comes to production autos, but I just don't get the same acoustic satisfaction
Disassembly
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_blades_sm.jpg
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_pivot_sm.jpg
This pic shows what Mr. Valloton has done to the blade tang (note the extra slot). You'll see another pic showing why this was done below, but in a few words he had to make room for the spring's trap door bar by sliding the blade stopping pin forward. One disadvantage here with this extra slot is the difficulty in interchanging blades.
For the pivot image above, I show this here to illustrate how the blade was removed. It seems the liners are permanently sealed together, or maybe screw mounted to the release mechanism. But the pivot screw can still be popped out:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_leaf_eng_sm.jpg
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_leaf_dis_sm.jpg
So as you might have guessed, the conversion is basically a leaf spring release mechanism with a trap door like metal bar holding the spring in place. Pushing the scale to the right causes the bar to slide forward and release the spring. The spring then whacks the blade open at its ricasso (not the nearby slot as you might assume). Simple =)
Here's a view of the front scale removed, showing the spring release mechanism:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_mech_sm.jpg
This is the spring release mechanism that makes the conversion possible. It appears to be mounted to the liner with two flathead screws, but I didn't want to find out and unscrew the mount just yet (out of fear mostly
). Also notice the underside of the scale which is hollowed out slightly to fit over the spring release mount. Looking at this mechanism more closely, it is composed of two pieces. The top piece is the trap door bar and arm, which extends into a right angle that connects to the bottom piece. As you can see, moving this bottom piece to the right (see pic below) moves the trap door forward and releases the spring. Take a look here:http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_mech_action.jpg
The bottom piece appears to provide the tension (notice the two tension bars) needed to force the trap door bar and scale back to their original positions. Also, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think that is rust on this piece. Looks more like burnt metal to me. What kind of steel this is I haven't a clue.
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_side_sm.jpg
What appears to be different on the back side is the third hole (my unmodified cqc-7a only has two screw holes on this side). Besides this, nothing else is different.
And finally, here is the knife completely disassembled:
http://members.picturelist.com/images/pacopaco/cqc7bv/cqc7bv_dis_sm.jpg
What the significance of #9 is I'm not sure. Maybe this is knife #9 in the Emerson conversion series? A nice thought but I highly doubt it
Well this is pretty much it. It's a simple yet innovative D/A design, I think.
Complaints
As with anything, there are some complaints that I have already:
The pivot spacers and frame bar are plastic! Unless I'm missing something here, why couldn't Emerson at least use aluminum for the frame bar and brass for the pivots? Despite this my other edc cqc-7 has been holding up very well (no blade play, smooth maunal opening action). Also, I like tanto blades styles but why o why couldn't Emerson do something other than chisel ground? I've grown to like it though.
For the conversion, the only complaint I have is a minor aesthetic one. To make the G10 scale movable, Butch reversed the blade pivot screw and then drilled a small hole the same diameter as the pivot nut into the scale. So the real pivot nut is inside/underneath the scale and a fake one is mounted on top. This all sounds complicated but what I'm trying to say is the fake nut is plastic. This kind of bugs me, for the money I paid I would have expected metal instead. Again not a major big deal for me.
Lastly, I think it wouldn't hurt to have a safety feature on the knife. Most autos are prone to misfire, especially D/A knives. This is just my opinion but the main use for auto-released knives is mostly for convenience (or showing off
), not for some tactical reason. I can deploy a folder's blade out just as a fast manually if needed. So why not a safety button? This is mostly a gripe with all autos as I've had a few misfire on me over the years.Conclusion
I really like this knife a lot and so far it's been solid. No problems have yet surfaced that some people pointed out in the forums. I've only had the knife for two weeks (as of writing this review) and am keeping my fingers crossed.
