Newbie's first knife takedown: Boker Kwaiken

M

major_works

Joined
Aug 30, 2014
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This morning, as I typically do, I get in the car and as I drive, I fondle my orange G-10 BHQ Kwaiken. Yeah, you know, you do it too. :p

I absent-mindedly flick the thumbstud and the blade opens, but it makes a strange noise when it hits the stop pin. I glance down at the knife and, uh oh, the liner lock isn't engaging. Nuts!

I've never taken a knife apart before. I don't even have a set of miniature torx drivers. So I stop at Home Depot and grab one for $6.

To make a long story short, taking the knife apart wasn't too tough. I managed to semi-strip one of the Philips-head screws for the backspacer but it's not a problem. Getting it back together, however, was challenging what with the darn bearings. Having a little screwdriver with a slightly magnetized tip helped, and so did the stickiness of Boker's grease. It took about 3-4 ham-handed attempts but I finally got the thing back into one piece. Didn't lose any bearings either, thank God.

So what was wrong with the lock? Well, when I got it apart, some piece of hard schmutz fell out of the pivot end. It must have been stuck between the stop pin and the tang, preventing the blade from traveling to full open position. PITA is what it is. But now I know I can break the knife down and get it back together again, which made me feel like I'd actually accomplished something.
 
I've disassembled and reassembled a lot of different knives, and the boker kwaiken is one of the more difficult because of those loose bearings. Don't be afraid to break down your other knives now, most are much are easier to deal with.
Congrats on fixing it yourself!
 
Thanks, Steve. I suspected that something was in there as I couldn't imagine what else could be the problem. I blew into the pivot end as hard as I could from various angles but to no avail. So for the price of a mini torx set (which I'd been meaning to pick up anyway) and a little patience, I learned something.
 
Thanks for sharing your experience!

I picked up an orange Kwaiken just after Thanksgiving when they were on sale (looks like they're all gone now?).

I plan on doing the flipper mod on mine and maybe drilling out the liners some to reduce weight. This will be a step up from the minor mods I've done on other blades, but I think I can handle it.

I inspected the knife when I got it, fit and finish, etc... all look great, but then it went back in the box until Christmas, when I get to gift to myself, lol.
 
I tried to open my CF Kwaiken and they applied so much loctite to the pivot that it was unable to be moved. I even held a soldering iron to the pivot until it was too hot to even touch and it was still unable to be moved. I ended up stripping the pivot out which was my own knucklehead fault but the fit and finish on these things are awful anyway. I was trying to get the knife to a point where i could use it and upkeep it when it got dirty in that pivot area but now useless, unless i can get another pivot and extract the old one. All in all its the crappiest experience ive had servicing one of my knives.
 
I had two slight difficulties in disassembly. One was the aforementioned back spacer screw. The other was the pivot, but not because of Loctite. Rather, I couldn't get the female end with the dome to slide out. For me the solution was to partially screw the bolt back in and push on that instead of trying to push from the inside of the dome. Putting it back together was another story. I understand that the bearings are captive in the Ti and CF models, so if/when you get that pivot issue solved, the rest will be easier for you than it was for us orange owners.
 
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