I've Successfully Lightened a Nailbreaker Backspring

I have been trying to loosen up the blade a new queen muskrat. One is quite nice and the other is nail breaker stiff. As opposed to using a belt sander, how about if I start with 120 sandpaper on the spring by hand? Eventually graduating to 1K sandpaper to finish it off. I don't want to remove to much material and one of the springs is about right. Please let me know your thoughts, thanks.

Best regards,
 
Pollack said:
I have been trying to loosen up the blade a new queen muskrat. One is quite nice and the other is nail breaker stiff. As opposed to using a belt sander, how about if I start with 120 sandpaper on the spring by hand? Eventually graduating to 1K sandpaper to finish it off. I don't want to remove to much material and one of the springs is about right. Please let me know your thoughts, thanks.

Best regards,
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Is it a single spring or a two spring knife? Can you post a picture?

Either way, I'm not sure it will matter, as the center pin acts as the "back/bottom" of the spring as far as spring tension goes. So as long as you're only sanding the nailbreaker side, you won't affect the spring tension of the other blade. Then you can refinish the entire spine of the handle to make the finish match.

If you're going by hand, though I would definitely start with lower grit than 120, as it's going to take some time to remove enough material from a tempered steel spring that way to make a difference. Also - pay attention to holding the knife straight up and down so that you don't remove liner/cover material more quickly. The belt goes quick enough on steel that the removal is uniform, but the steel is a lot slower to grind by hand than the handle material and brass, so my concern would be taking care not to cause your handle to recede like a pirate's gums.
 
Thanks for taking the time to reply, yes it is a dual spring. I have a 1" belt sander as well, I could probably use the 1K grit. That wouldn't take to much off I suppose.

Best regards,


iu
 
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Pollack said:
Thanks for taking the time to reply, yes it is a dual spring. I have a 1" belt sander as well, I could probably use the 1K grit. That wouldn't take to much off I suppose.

Best regards,


iu
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Probably not, just be careful not to overheat it. The higher grit belts will heat up your metal quicker.

I'd buy a cheap knife or two and practice hafting. That helped a lot with the learning curve for me.
 
traumkommode said:
Probably not, just be careful not to overheat it. The higher grit belts will heat up your metal quicker.

I'd buy a cheap knife or two and practice hafting. That helped a lot with the learning curve for me.
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That is a real good idea to try it on a cheapo. Also, I have read not to overheat it. What are the ramifications?

Best regards,
 
Grinding/sanding material off of the back of the knife may affect how the spring sits in the blade-open position. You are lowering the liners/bolsters/cover material/spine of spring together, but that is in the closed position. When you open the blade, the spring is still going to sit where it was in the open position. I would imagine that it will sit high now, albeit maybe not that noticeable. I don't necessarily recommend this as a standard way to lighten the pull of a blade.
 
Good point glennbad, do you have any other thoughts on how I can lighten it? I'm about to order a queen city blade lifter I found, thanks.

Best regards,
 
Yes, Glenn brings up an excellent point - the reason I chose to perform this modification is that the spines of both the main blade and the caplifter blade on my 85 were lower when open than the top of the springs by a significant amount. They are now flush when open.
 
Pollack said:
Good point glennbad, do you have any other thoughts on how I can lighten it? I'm about to order a queen city blade lifter I found, thanks.

Best regards,
Click to expand...

Yes, I've had good success with this method. You'll need jewelers files. With the blade in the open position (and please tape the blade edge off, no accidents needed!), use the jewelers file to slightly relieve the corner on the inside of the blade tang here...

inner tang.jpg

You don't need to take much off, and check as you go so you don't do too much. I find the little square file works best, and helps me get in tight against the liners. This method doesn't lessen the strength of the spring, it just lessens the pull to get the blade started. That's where most people have an issue, with stiff pulls breaking fingernails.

Also, make sure to flush the joint out after making the little filings.
 
traumkommode said:
Yes, Glenn brings up an excellent point - the reason I chose to perform this modification is that the spines of both the main blade and the caplifter blade on my 85 were lower when open than the top of the springs by a significant amount. They are now flush when open.
Click to expand...

Yes, I didn't mean to imply that this method wouldn't produce positive results, more-so that there can be other unintended consequences
 
Wonderful, thanks for taking the time post a picture as well. I will give it a try.

Best regards,
 
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