- Joined
- Jul 2, 1999
- Messages
- 1,347
A friend of mine recently bought A Kershaw/Ken Onion Chive. Within the first few hours there was a problem with the speed safe mechanism(torsion bar). Whenever you opened the knife, the torsion bar would only kick the blade out half way and then you would have to finish it manually. It got to the point where you almost needed two hands to open the blade completely. The knife eventually started getting better on its own but never to the point where it would snap open all the way. Instead of having him send it back to Kershaw, I gave him a new one and kept his. I decide that having never seen the inside of a speed safe knife, I would fix this one on my own. The knife was very easy to disassemble with very little "excess" parts to lose. The torsion bar sits in a recess cutout in 1 scale and is then covered by a cover plate that just rests on top of it. The recess was filled with a generous portion of grease. I thoroughly cleaned the entire knife and even cleaned out all of the grease. I lubed all the moving parts with Tuf-Glide and filled up the recess that the torsion bar rests in. I then reassembled the knife. I found out that the tolerances on this knife are so fine that even tightening the screws at the back spacer would prevent the knife from snapping open. I loosened the screws a tad(really, it was very little)but not too much where it would make the knife lose. The knife now opens faster than ANY chive that I have handled. I never really found out what the actual problem was but cleaning it seemed to do the trick. For those that have been afraid to look inside a torsion assist knife, fear no more! It is a cinch and you have NOTHING to worry about, aside from voiding the warranty!