How To what are the essential pieces to a knife maintenance kit

[john king]

what are the essential pieces to a knife maintenance kit to look after my joker folding knife with wooden handle.

 

[Mo2]

Zippo lighter fluid
Acetone
Rubbing alcohol
Wiha torx bits 2 of each and two drivers. (or other high end bits)
Grease and or lube.
Sharpening stones.
Strops and diamond paste.
Q tips and shop towels
Heat gun for locktite
Blue and or purple locktite (avoid red it's permanent)
Can of air

Acetone or zippo lighter fluid to remove old lubrication, alcohol to clean scales (alcohol can work to clean old lube but takes more tries and scrubbing).

If you have any resistance loosening screws just stop. It likely has locktite. If you try and budge it, it will likely strip a screw or your bit. Use a soldering iron, heat gun or boil the knife in water to loosen the bond. There is also a method to shock the bond loose.

Note I don't know what a joker folding knife in wood is. You could just use soap and water and make sure you dry it very good so it doesn't rust from the water. Avoid using Acetone, zippo lighter fluid on wood and g10 and.carbon fiber. As it will discolor and be bad for those materials. Alcohol may dry wood out buy generally if will evaporate fast I'd you don't apply alot to a shop towel.

But this list is what's mostly in my kit.

 

[Eli Chaps]

Well to each their own but I don't keep half of what is in the above list.

I'm not familiar with the entirety of the Joker folding knife line but I'm not even sure they have screws and I personally wouldn't use alcohol on the wooden handle unless it was real grimey. Don't reckon it would hurt anything though.

Whatever sharpening gear your prefer and maybe a can of compressed air to blow out the pivot here and there, or maybe never. A light coat of mineral oil on the wood probably wouldn't hurt from time to time.

The front of your pant's leg will do a lot of the heavy lifting.

Maybe I've become over-simplified...

 

[Night Rider]

Zippo lighter fluid
Acetone
Rubbing alcohol
Wiha torx bits 2 of each and two drivers. (or other high end bits)
Grease and or lube.
Sharpening stones.
Strops and diamond paste.
Q tips and shop towels
Heat gun for locktite

Acetone or zippo lighter fluid to remove old lubrication, alcohol to clean scales (alcohol can work to clean old lube but takes more tries and scrubbing).

If you have any resistance loosening screws just stop. It likely has locktite. If you try and budge it, it will likely strip a screw or your bit. Use a soldering iron, heat gun or boil the knife in water to loosen the bond. There is also a method to shock the bond loose.

Same as above ^ but minus the strops and Diamond paste unless you have some knowledge in stropping. For $20 bucks on ---zon you might want to think about one of those work matts if you plan on doing regular knife servicing . Some of them come with magnetic spots that come in handy for keeping screws off the floor and oil and grease wipe right off the matt material . BTW I use a hair dryer to loosen loctite and Blue loctite to reassemble and Neats foot oil wooden handles.

 

[Mo2]

and oil and grease wipe right off

This isn't exactly true. Sure if you don't care about removing all the previous lube this is fine. But you will still have lube on it. And for some this doesn't matter in the least. However it matters in some situations. Like if you have lockstick from lube on the lockbar or tang. Or if your chasing that super action on bb flippers. Nothing to worry about otherwise. But applying lube and wiping it off is probably the correct amount of lube for knives. Plenty of lube is still there. You can't get it all off without dissolving it.

 

[PirateSeulb]

For an essentials kit I would trim down Mo2 's list but it does include essentials. I am a bit torn on sharpening stones mostly because I don't have them in mine and I lack the ability to free hand. I have yet to get any guided system so I have to outsource all my sharpening. I can see a reason to not have sharpening items in the kit I also wouldn't put on an essentials list redundancy for tools which his seems to indicate. This isn't so much a critique of his kit his is very thorough but it doesn't match mine and that is fine his to me is beyond the essentials.

 

[Craig James]

You’ll get by with a cheap 400 grit stone and some practise if all you want to do is keep it sharp. Get a 180 grit if you need to take out some nicks and a 1000 if you want to refine the edge.

Some other bits and pieces to maintain the handle and mechanism

 

[Night Rider]

This isn't exactly true. Sure if you don't care about removing all the previous lube this is fine. But you will still have lube on it. And for some this doesn't matter in the least. However it matters in some situations. Like if you have lockstick from lube on the lockbar or tang. Or if your chasing that super action on bb flippers. Nothing to worry about otherwise. But applying lube and wiping it off is probably the correct amount of lube for knives. Plenty of lube is still there. You can't get it all off without dissolving it.

sory Mo2, that was a bad sentence on my part. I meant that oil and grease wipe off the work matt easley. I hope nobody unlubed their knife after servicing because of that so I edited it.

 

[Wowbagger]

The Japanese have a saying : A master is the craftsman that has the sharpest tools and sharpens least.
Translation : your brain is the best tool on the list.

I have a whole lot of tools for many crafts and professions and they over lap a lot. So I'm covered if I need something once or twice from the lists above.
Mostly I would recommend what I use the most :

• Edge Pro Apex with stones appropriate to your alloys.
• Some super light oil for the pivot; I use Starrett instrument oil.

• Beyond that a magic marker and some 90% alc to get the marker off with.