I took my new ZT0205, the Knife Works special edition that has the bb blade instead of the DLC blade, apart the other afternoon and did some cleaning up! Laid all the pieces out first thing. From there I started with the liners. Btw these liners are nearly .080" thick and constructed from hardened stainless steel, heavier and most solid they are. I worked on the area where the blade rotates and I polished it with some mag wheel polish, that really does a good job, and a piece of worn out 2000 grit wet/dry sandpaper. This got the area really smooth and very polished. I followed this with the polish alone, and then with my dremel tool and a cotton buffing wheel. When I was finished you could see your reflection! I followed the same procedure for the area of the blade where the phospher-bronze washers go, then I did the pivot pin shaft, followed by the washers themselves.
I use Miltec lubricant as my choice of lube, but I don't do the heating procedure. I'm sure that would help some. I apply the Miltec on the pivot pin shaft, and on the blade where the washers go, and that is it. I put it back together, tightened down everything after applying blue Loctite, medium strength, and then began to flip. It took a few flips to really get the whole action really smooth because I tighten my pivots pretty tight, in fact I've had people swear the blade was locked in the closed position because they couldn't move it! So after everything smoothed up I begin to tighten the pivot a tiny bit at a time until I got to my sweet spot. The polish job really did the trick as I could hit the flipper and that blade just shot out of there! Now what I have found out is that after 24 hours the Miltec seems to have completed it's job and the flipping action is even smoother, which requires a further tightening of the pivot to get to that sweet spot once again, only this time I apply a drop of the blue Loctite to the end of the pivot screw before setting the nut where I want it.
Btw, another thing I generally do is to put a little more bend into the locking liner so that the lock has increased stiffness. These really seems to secure the lock as I don't see it, the locking bar, sliding to the left and coming unlocked until I decide to do it myself. Of course this is with normal use of a liner locking knife. The extra stiffness did not move the locking liner any more to the right on the blade tang, but only made it stiffer to unlock, and not sticky stiff, just stiffy stiff
There is plenty of room for any wear to occur as we are talking about a .080" liner and a .156" blade tang, and with both pieces eing hardened stainless, there will be less wear than if the liner was titanium.
Man I love to tinker with my knives. I just feel that these are touches that a custom maker might do to a similar knife that would be impractical, and costly, for a company to do.
I use Miltec lubricant as my choice of lube, but I don't do the heating procedure. I'm sure that would help some. I apply the Miltec on the pivot pin shaft, and on the blade where the washers go, and that is it. I put it back together, tightened down everything after applying blue Loctite, medium strength, and then began to flip. It took a few flips to really get the whole action really smooth because I tighten my pivots pretty tight, in fact I've had people swear the blade was locked in the closed position because they couldn't move it! So after everything smoothed up I begin to tighten the pivot a tiny bit at a time until I got to my sweet spot. The polish job really did the trick as I could hit the flipper and that blade just shot out of there! Now what I have found out is that after 24 hours the Miltec seems to have completed it's job and the flipping action is even smoother, which requires a further tightening of the pivot to get to that sweet spot once again, only this time I apply a drop of the blue Loctite to the end of the pivot screw before setting the nut where I want it.
Btw, another thing I generally do is to put a little more bend into the locking liner so that the lock has increased stiffness. These really seems to secure the lock as I don't see it, the locking bar, sliding to the left and coming unlocked until I decide to do it myself. Of course this is with normal use of a liner locking knife. The extra stiffness did not move the locking liner any more to the right on the blade tang, but only made it stiffer to unlock, and not sticky stiff, just stiffy stiff
There is plenty of room for any wear to occur as we are talking about a .080" liner and a .156" blade tang, and with both pieces eing hardened stainless, there will be less wear than if the liner was titanium.Man I love to tinker with my knives. I just feel that these are touches that a custom maker might do to a similar knife that would be impractical, and costly, for a company to do.
