I thnik I broke my BM814 (mini-AFCK)...HELP

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kyoung05

Joined
Oct 24, 2003
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Ok, well not broke, but rendered it pretty useless for all intents and purposes. So what happened is this. There was a little play in the blade, a very slight up-and-down "slop", that may have been there forever, but I just noticed it today. Anyways, being the "never leaving good enough alone" type that I am, I took an allen wrench and attempted to tighten the screw. So, it tightened alright, too tight in fact. To add insult to injury, the allen wrench made a "clickety-click" noise as I was tightening the screw, and think it may have stripped it. Now, it is WAY too tight to open, and take a considerable amount of force using BOTH hands to open. Also, I cannot loosen the screw since it seems to be stripped. What can I do? So I send it back to benchmade? If so, how do I package/senmd it? Will they charge me for replacing the screw? Is there anything I can do by myself to fix this? Please help. Thanks.
 
Well, as far as I know the BM's screws are not for allen wrenches, they are for a torx. You need the BM torx set, or the right sized torx. You probably stuck a small allen in there and stripped out the torx threads, or whatever you call them. DOH.
 
There are a few things you could do short of sending it back, which honestly I'd recommend doing if the screw is stripped badly enough that the proper size (most likely T-10) torx driver can't remove it. Any large hardware store will have kits for removing damaged screws, Sears, Ace Hardware, etc, ask the guy at the counter and maybe show him the damage to get the part you need. Then find an appropriate replacement screw, the length isn't too important, you can cut it down with a dremel tool or hacksaw and then clean off the threads with a stiff wire brush to fit. The most important thing is making sure the threads and diameter are "exactly" the same, otherwise you risk doing real damage to the pivot threads which will require servicing by benchmade, and shouldn't be covered under warranty because you messed them up.
 
You could send it to me and make my day :)

Other than that, you may try to

a) loosen all the other screws with a PROPER screwdriver
b) loosen the main screw by rotating the handles in opposite directions
c) get a new screw from benchmade

Dunno if that works for you, it helped me once.

Good Luck, if everything else fails, use a hammer. If it breaks, it needed replacement anyway. Then you might as well ship it to me.
 
On the Benchmade website it says the tools used are "torx-like". Now, are they actually different from regular torx screws, or are they same same? Reason I ask is I could theoretically loosen all of the other screws as richardallen suggested and loosed the main one by the handle, but I want to make sure that regular torx screwdrivers are going to work before I go on and bugger all of the screws. This MAY be cheaper than sending it to Benchmade. I'll find out soon I hope, as I sent their repair dept. an email. Thanks for the advice so far.

P.S. Not wanting to be without a knife for any period of time, I ordered myself a Spyderco Delica w/ VG-10 blade as a "temporary" transition knife. My girlfriend has agreed to get me a BM 630 for Christmas, so between that and the Delica, I think I may just get the mini-afck repaired and either sell it or gift it to someone as it seems a bit "clunky" for its size.
 
BM's use regular torx driivers available at sears/autozone/etc, sears has a set for like $15 or so w/all the sizes ya need (and some ya dont for a BM anyway)

get the right driver and see if it will fit in the screw and loosen it up, that should fix it, if it is completely stripped or rounded out ya probably need to send it to BM, unless ya REALLY tightened it down hard i doubt ya stripped it out as the crennalations (is that the right word lol??) go pretty deep into the screw, i.e. i use a allen wrench on some of my BM's and they will tighten up to a point and then slip, but i havent ever stripped one out, unless ya tightened the other screws down at the time i see no need to loosen them up anyway, its the pivot screw ya are messing with right? if so the other ones should be fine.

with the right driver i bet it will loosen up, i have heard the clickity clack sound on mine when using an allen wrench and again have never stripped one out all the way.

good luck

greg
 
I second Sifu's advice. I don't think you stripped out the threads, or the thing would obviously come loose again quickly. That clicking was only the sound of the allen wrench slipping past the (non-fitting) torx bumps.
Hell, I wouldn't even bother buying the torx screwdriver yet. Just go find the proper one at a hardware store or something, loosen your knife right there, put it back on the shelf, and be on your merry way. :)
 
Ok, so, I went to the hardware store looking for the right size torx driver to loosen the screw, and looks like it as a size 9 torx that would have fit. However, when I tried to loosen it, it seems to be in there so tight that all I did was worsen the stripping. Now, nothing seems to be able to get a grip in there. I guess my only options are to send it to Benchmade and have them fix it and charge me whatever they will, or to take a size 6 torx driver and remove all the other screws like someone suggested and try getting it out that way, and hope I can put it back together once I get a new screw from Benchmade. Man, what a PITA... :mad:
 
If the pivot pin is drawn down that tight, the stop pin probably won't come out even if you loosen all the other screws. That would stop you from turning the handles, which means you'll have all the screws out and still be stuck.
Not trying to be a downer, but that is one very good possibility.
 
Not to be a smart A$$ but you got where you are tryig to fix it yourself. It sounds like the knife is repairable at this point. I would send it back to Benchmade and not worry about whatever nominal repair cost is involved to get the knife back to its original condition. I would mention the bblade play so they could address that issue at the same time. I am afraid that if you continue trying to save $10 for repairs and postage by hacking on the knife yourself you will damage it badly and may geit it to a state where it can not be repaired. Trashing a $100 knife to save a couple bucks in postage and repair costs is pretty poor value in my book.
 
One thing you might try. Go back to the hardware store and see if they have a screw extractor (EZ-out) small enough to fit in the head of the screw. Its going to turn pretty easy if you can just get it loosened a quarter of a turn, just need something with enough bite to get it started.
 
jepp, thanks Matt. You are probably right about the stop pin. I forgot that my problem was a screw in the rear end.
 
Thanks for all of the suggestions. At this point, it is definitely going back to Benchmade. I emailed their repair department the other day and haven't gotten a response since my email server has been kind of screwy. I am also waiting for my delica to get here so that I won't be without a knife during the "downtime". Thanks to all again.
 
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