Slipjoint restoration

[Pseudonym]

I was wondering is anyone could give me advice on restoring an old slipjoint I have. The liners are sort of separated and bent and gunked up, to the point where the blade play is beyond annoying - it's actually unsafe (and therefore pointless to carry).

Is there a way to fix it with minimal tools, or maybe someone on the forum who could do it for a fee? It mostly has sentimental value (it belonged to my grandfather) so I don't want to go messing it up, but I would love to be able to carry and use it.

 

[waynorth]

I'd need to see more of the knife before I could comment. There are some good knifemakers in B.C. who could re-pin it for you.

 

[Pseudonym]

Sorry, here are some better pics:

That's the only pin that's sunk like that, the rest are flush more or less.

 

[fast14riot]

The culprit of your knife separation looks to be a bent spring. The secondary spring (thin one) sems to have a lateral bend in it that the facory tried to just pin down. The years of working the blade, and prying with the blade have tweaked the liner and allowed the spring to push it out.

The quick and dirty method is to clamp it back straight and use a center punch to dimple the pin and effectively pein the end of the pin, it kinda ugly that way though. Check out my WIP thread for instructions on this topic in the coming days, practice on some $2.25 (adjusted for exchange rate) fleamarket finds, then fix the knife yourself! Pinning doesn't take much tools, but does take practice!


Good luck!
-Xander