- Joined
- Nov 20, 2016
- Messages
- 144
One of my problems is that when I "tune" a knife, I end up changing several things at one time and if there is an improvement, I never know which thing made the improvement. But I might have a good guess on this one.
A few weeks ago I bought a used (I was at least a 3rd owner) Shirogorov Dr. Death CF. I was surprised that is had some lockstick, the flip open was pretty weak, and there was nothing like a dramatic smooth gravity drop close.
So I went to work on the knife. BTW I do this with all my knives whether its a $2000 or $10 knife. Its part of the fun. I did a bunch of stuff ,which included trying no lube and different lubes, Changing the tension on the lockbar, cleaning everything, different pivot screw tightnesses, and even polished the detent ball track on the tang. I thought about adjusting the detent ball but after several suggestions by others... I got scared and decided not to do that.
The Sentry Solutions BP-2000 fixed the lockstick right away where magic marker did not and a pencil was too short term of a fix.
And a result of the work greatly improved the flipping action and drop close. If a Shirogorov T95 was 100% perfect, then this knife was like 80%.
But as I would flip it more and more. All of that worsened to the point where it almost felt like it was dragging on something. But I could not tell what. It got where I could not not flip without and major wrist action and there was no drop close. Had to use my fingers to close.
So I did all of the above again. Same results. Pretty good for a while and then crap.
Someone referred me to http://blades-blades-blades.blogspot.com . He is a big Shiro collector and fiddles with his knifes. One blog entry suggested flipping the pivot screw. He had found that on one of his Shiro's it made a big difference.
So I tried that and the cylinder portion of the pivot screw will not fit in the CF outside. But it does fit in the inside of the CF. It felt like maybe the CF was milled that way with a thin CF stop. I got my loupe out and the ring that was stopping the screw did not look like CF.
So I pushed on the screw fairly hard and it popped through. What came out looked a bit like dried blue locktite? So I clean the hole out till the pivot went in easily but with no slop. But at the same time I also attached a circle template on the blade tang just outside of the detent ball track. And I went from 150 to 5000 grit sandpaper on the track area. Then followed up with a dremel buffer with black, white, and green polishing wax. Finally with some simichrome polish. Note that I had polished in previous attemps like this but with no sandpaper, just the wax and polish.
One other different thing. I used to use a weak locktite in the pivot screw but I and now using a bit of teflon tape wrapped around the screw threads. That idea was from the blog as well.
A miracle !!!! The knife is more centered. Flips open and drops close to about 98% of the 95T. And after lots and lots of flipping.... still the same.
I really think that a previous owner (not the one I bought it from as he never disassembled the knife) or I (I might have done it in the beginning and forgot) put too much blue locktite in. When screwed tight, the locktite oozed out and onto the CF hole and made a ringed stop attaced to the CF. It may not have been a level ring. And it certainly put a different geometry on the pivot design?
Thoughts?
A few weeks ago I bought a used (I was at least a 3rd owner) Shirogorov Dr. Death CF. I was surprised that is had some lockstick, the flip open was pretty weak, and there was nothing like a dramatic smooth gravity drop close.
So I went to work on the knife. BTW I do this with all my knives whether its a $2000 or $10 knife. Its part of the fun. I did a bunch of stuff ,which included trying no lube and different lubes, Changing the tension on the lockbar, cleaning everything, different pivot screw tightnesses, and even polished the detent ball track on the tang. I thought about adjusting the detent ball but after several suggestions by others... I got scared and decided not to do that.
The Sentry Solutions BP-2000 fixed the lockstick right away where magic marker did not and a pencil was too short term of a fix.
And a result of the work greatly improved the flipping action and drop close. If a Shirogorov T95 was 100% perfect, then this knife was like 80%.
But as I would flip it more and more. All of that worsened to the point where it almost felt like it was dragging on something. But I could not tell what. It got where I could not not flip without and major wrist action and there was no drop close. Had to use my fingers to close.
So I did all of the above again. Same results. Pretty good for a while and then crap.
Someone referred me to http://blades-blades-blades.blogspot.com . He is a big Shiro collector and fiddles with his knifes. One blog entry suggested flipping the pivot screw. He had found that on one of his Shiro's it made a big difference.
So I tried that and the cylinder portion of the pivot screw will not fit in the CF outside. But it does fit in the inside of the CF. It felt like maybe the CF was milled that way with a thin CF stop. I got my loupe out and the ring that was stopping the screw did not look like CF.
So I pushed on the screw fairly hard and it popped through. What came out looked a bit like dried blue locktite? So I clean the hole out till the pivot went in easily but with no slop. But at the same time I also attached a circle template on the blade tang just outside of the detent ball track. And I went from 150 to 5000 grit sandpaper on the track area. Then followed up with a dremel buffer with black, white, and green polishing wax. Finally with some simichrome polish. Note that I had polished in previous attemps like this but with no sandpaper, just the wax and polish.
One other different thing. I used to use a weak locktite in the pivot screw but I and now using a bit of teflon tape wrapped around the screw threads. That idea was from the blog as well.
A miracle !!!! The knife is more centered. Flips open and drops close to about 98% of the 95T. And after lots and lots of flipping.... still the same.
I really think that a previous owner (not the one I bought it from as he never disassembled the knife) or I (I might have done it in the beginning and forgot) put too much blue locktite in. When screwed tight, the locktite oozed out and onto the CF hole and made a ringed stop attaced to the CF. It may not have been a level ring. And it certainly put a different geometry on the pivot design?
Thoughts?
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