- Joined
- Sep 19, 2009
- Messages
- 1,679
IMPROVISE: "to make, provide, or do with the tools and materials at hand, usually to fill an unforeseen and immediate need".
COBBLE: "to mend or put together clumsily or crudely".
I am not a knife maker, nor do I know much about knives or the correct terminology in describing the various parts of knives. Being an old farm boy, I am somewhat experienced in improvising and/or cobbling.
Here we go. I did this on a #73 GEC single blade. Open the knife to half way between closed and the half-stop. At the top you'll see a sharp 90 degree angle from the back of the blade itself. ("back of the blade" - first of many examples of my lack of knowledge of correct knife terminology). Anyway, I used a small DMT Coarse Dia-Sharp stone to round off that 90 degree angle. If you look at it you will see that this will make it easier to operate the knife from the half-stop to the open position, due to a more rounded surface now contacting the back spring. Kinda like a knife without half-stops, it's rounded where it contacts the back spring.
So far, so good. What about getting it to operate easier from the closed position to the half-stop? You can't get to the corresponding 90 degree angled piece to perform the same operation as above. However, in performing the above operation, you will have abraded small particles of steel and diamonds (or whatever stone you used) that have now fallen into the "V" that was formed when the knife was is the earlier position. Go ahead and operate the knife now. You will feel the grittiness immediately. I figured operating the knife this way for 7 or 8 cycles would "grind down" some of the parts that are rubbing against each other. (Ouch!). I'll admit that this step may be a really stupid thing to do, and could possibly damage the knife. You may want to skip this part.
Of course, after doing any of this you will need to flush out everything very well to get it operating smoothly again. Then put some Flitz in there and operate it to polish up everything. Then wash it up, flush it out, and oil it up.
It looks like this will only work on knives that have squared off bolsters and liners on the end where they contact the blade. I believe the #23's have this. I know my #73 has this. The smaller #25's are rounded bolsters and the above improvisation/cobble won't work.
Take it for what it's worth, fellas. And please don't trash me too bad for knife abuse. Mine is going to be a user and I don't mind experimenting a little.
COBBLE: "to mend or put together clumsily or crudely".
I am not a knife maker, nor do I know much about knives or the correct terminology in describing the various parts of knives. Being an old farm boy, I am somewhat experienced in improvising and/or cobbling.
Here we go. I did this on a #73 GEC single blade. Open the knife to half way between closed and the half-stop. At the top you'll see a sharp 90 degree angle from the back of the blade itself. ("back of the blade" - first of many examples of my lack of knowledge of correct knife terminology). Anyway, I used a small DMT Coarse Dia-Sharp stone to round off that 90 degree angle. If you look at it you will see that this will make it easier to operate the knife from the half-stop to the open position, due to a more rounded surface now contacting the back spring. Kinda like a knife without half-stops, it's rounded where it contacts the back spring.
So far, so good. What about getting it to operate easier from the closed position to the half-stop? You can't get to the corresponding 90 degree angled piece to perform the same operation as above. However, in performing the above operation, you will have abraded small particles of steel and diamonds (or whatever stone you used) that have now fallen into the "V" that was formed when the knife was is the earlier position. Go ahead and operate the knife now. You will feel the grittiness immediately. I figured operating the knife this way for 7 or 8 cycles would "grind down" some of the parts that are rubbing against each other. (Ouch!). I'll admit that this step may be a really stupid thing to do, and could possibly damage the knife. You may want to skip this part.
Of course, after doing any of this you will need to flush out everything very well to get it operating smoothly again. Then put some Flitz in there and operate it to polish up everything. Then wash it up, flush it out, and oil it up.
It looks like this will only work on knives that have squared off bolsters and liners on the end where they contact the blade. I believe the #23's have this. I know my #73 has this. The smaller #25's are rounded bolsters and the above improvisation/cobble won't work.
Take it for what it's worth, fellas. And please don't trash me too bad for knife abuse. Mine is going to be a user and I don't mind experimenting a little.
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lol 
