Found an old friend. Who can help fix it?

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fishcakes

Joined
Apr 18, 2015
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I went to my grandmothers this past weekend to help her move. She had let me keep a few tubs in her basement a few years ago and when i opened one of them, i found my very first knife tucked in the bottom of it. I was pretty happy having thought this knife long lost.

Now, i know its not even a good knife, but its very special to me as im sure most of you can imagine. Unfortunately i was pretty rough on this knife and its got alot of problems. Horizontal and lateral blade play when locked up, the edge hits the hollow where it rests while in the closed position, and when locked up the tang and well "spring" arent properly squared off, so theres a bit of a gap there too.

Would anyone be able to direct me on hoe i could get this knife into better shape or direct me to someone who would do it for me if you dont think i could do it on my own?

Thank you

Ps. As this is a fairly traditional lockback style knife i hope its still considered traditional enough for this forum. If not, please let me know and ill post in another subforum
 
Some more pictures would help, but it might have been simply made without tight tolerances so there might be nothing you can do. If you have never taken a slipjoint/lockback knife apart I would not recommend trying it on one that means somthing to you.
 
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Heres the gap i was talking about

And heres the amount of horizontal play

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I can take any other pics necessary. It might take me a few minutes though
 
Ernie1980 said:
You are going to have play no matter what, the blade stock is thinner than the spring. Since it was your first knife maybe just display it and buy a replacement?
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Hmm, youre right. Ididnt notice that. I dont expect it to be perfect. But im pretty sure if i wiggled it enough, i could get that first pin out. Then maybe sand down the lockbar to match the width of the blade? Maybe im crazy, its just that i thought id never see this knife again, i dont think i could just let it sit in a drawer
 
fishcakes said:
Hmm, youre right. Ididnt notice that. I dont expect it to be perfect. But im pretty sure if i wiggled it enough, i could get that first pin out. Then maybe sand down the lockbar to match the width of the blade? Maybe im crazy, its just that i thought id never see this knife again, i dont think i could just let it sit in a drawer
Click to expand...
If you can get it apart you could probably thin down the lock bar to the thickness of the blade and that would allow the blade play to be fixed.
Now as far as the vertical blade play, maybe a few edges need to be lightly filed so they meat up better, but also it may also be more severe.
The lock bar could be soft, so you may just need to carefully hammer the edges back, or add some weld then file it to shape. Regardless of what needs to be done to get the vertical play out, the face of the lock bar would probably need to be case hardened which a gunsmith could do for a cheap price. ( they heat up a soft piece of steel then dip it in the case hardening solution to add some carbon to the surface so at least the surface can be hardened )
Either it always had the vertical play meaning it's just not properly sized and material needs to be added, or it developed the play meaning it was never very hard.

This is all based on the fact that as far as I can tell the lock bar doesn't appear to stick up proud so the brass lock bar pin didn't just bend.

You could do what I did though, and just consider your first quality knife as your first good knife and not worry about this one so much.

My very first knife was a dollar store sak knockoff, and while it did it's job as a first knife and I will never forget about it, I threw it in the garbage the moment I got something better.
 
If it was me I would send it off to a knifemaker to refurbish and make it better than it was intended.
 
You need to remove the center pin to get the lockbar out. Is there a separate piece in the butt of the knife that holds the flyspring? Here's a typical scenario; you take the lockbar out and surface grind it to the width of the blade, or ideally just slightly larger, put it back in the knife and find that now your flyspring is binding up because it was the same width as the original lockbar width, so now you have to take the butt piece out and grind it and the flyspring down as well. The only way to avoid this is to taper grind the lockbar, but that's a whole other can of worms. After all this you'd probably need new covers because it's a near guarantee that with all those pins to remove there's going to wind up being a crack somewhere. I just mention all of this to show that there's a lot of work involved, and I'm not sure it'd be worth it to you for on an inexpensive knife. I'd imagine it was in pretty close to the same condition when you had it last, so I'd just use it and disregard all its faults. You could maybe tap on the blade pin to bring it together a bit more, but you can't go too far or you'll bind up the lockbar. I'd recommend putting something like an .04 shim in there to be safe.

Eric
 
Thanks guys. In a fit of insomniatic impatience i wiggled my 4 way in there... Then a sak flathead... And then both covers and liner separated and now ive got the thing appart. No cracks, but the pins were all slightly bent. Not sure if i did it taking it apart or years ago pretending to slay a dragon.:confused:

Seems that the blade, lockbar and butt piece are all different widths. Im gonna take the pieces to work tomorrow and see if ive got time to sand them down and file the lock bar and cutout in the blade tang so they fit together properly. Hopefully i can stop by home depot and see if theyve got brass or stainless rod small enough that i can use it for pins.

I swear.. i just wanted to wiggle it a little...:confused:

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what are the scales made of and what brand is it?
If it was me I'd do what you are doing -but spend as little as possible. I think that would be more in keeping with the knifes true value.
its all do-able:):thumbsup:
 
meako said:
what are the scales made of and what brand is it?
If it was me I'd do what you are doing -but spend as little as possible. I think that would be more in keeping with the knifes true value.
its all do-able:):thumbsup:
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The scales are some kind of black plastic. Its also unbranded. The tang stamp just says "pakistan". Its one of the many very cheap lockbacks made i the early 90s. Got it from a flea market vendor
 
If I were you I'd use this as an opportunity to fix all or it's faults, do all of the things the Pakistani factory failed to do before putting it in its little box and shipping it out.
Even up the gimping, even up any unevenness in the grinds, and polish up the lock bar ...ect.
You should be able to get it functional again, but it could also look good as well.
 
Order new pin material, grind the spring down to match the blade width and then put it back together. It will mean even more knowing that YOU fixed your first knife!!! Go slow and be easy and itll come around.

Good Luck.

Matt
 
Brass rod is available from most hobby stores, I would take the knife with you for sizing. Avoid the stainless rod available at Home Depot, that would be a beast to peen!! Silver colored rod is nickel silver, which is something that usually has to be ordered and is much softer than stainless. I know it is too late now, but next time you take a knife apart video the process so you can get the pieces back together in the same direction. I learned this the hard way...
 
Spent some time sanding today. I couldnt find any brass rod at hone depot so i picked up some finishing nails that are very close to the size of the original pins.

Im assuming brass rod would be easier to peen, but will the stainless be that much harder?
 
Hickory n steel said:
If I were you I'd use this as an opportunity to fix all or it's faults, do all of the things the Pakistani factory failed to do before putting it in its little box and shipping it out.
Even up the gimping, even up any unevenness in the grinds, and polish up the lock bar ...ect.
You should be able to get it functional again, but it could also look good as well.
Click to expand...

I honestly dont care what it looks like, this is a user and always has been. Im mainly focusing on making sure all the parts are of identical width and that the lockup is tight.

I cant wait to start using this knife again. Nothing beats that feeling of catching up with an old friend, and thats exactly what this is. I also think it would be ridiculously cool to pull this knife out the next time i see my dad and see if he recognizes it.
 
fishcakes said:
Spent some time sanding today. I couldnt find any brass rod at hone depot so i picked up some finishing nails that are very close to the size of the original pins.

Im assuming brass rod would be easier to peen, but will the stainless be that much harder?
Click to expand...

Stainless will be much harder, more likely to provoke an error.
 
rishma said:
Stainless will be much harder, more likely to provoke an error.
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Darn. Alright. Ill see if i can get over to hobby lobby tomorrow. Hopefully i can and ill be able to finish this up tomorrow. If not, ill finish sanding this weekend and have to put it together next week at the shop. Thank you
 
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