This take down thing has become something of a fetish; what we should be looking for is sturdy enough construction to permit regular use, without having to regularly rebuild the knife. The Buck 110 has been everywhere over the last 50 years in vast numbers and I doubt that many of them have ever been taken apart. If that is becoming a problem for you then it is time to buy a better knife. There are way too many "tactical folders" that are little more than finicky men's jewelry, and those are not the kind of tools that you want to rely on in a harsh environment.
Great posts,
@not2sharp . I would suggest that I use my knives more on a daily basis than most here. On site, they open heavy cardboard packing, cut dirty fiberglass strapping, trim moldings, trim boards, scrape, pry, wedge, cut off poly tips of adhesive and caulk cartridges, sharpen my carpentry pencils, cut an occasional shingle, occasionally trim sheet rock, the point is used to scribe/strike a line (holding the knife backwards and dragging the point) onto sheet metal for cutting or bending, and on and on. They get dropped by accident, fall off roofs when I slip, ride around in my dirty tool bags, and occasionally wind up getting messed up by accident. And there's nothing like getting glue on the knife that takes lacquer thinner to get off, or having it fall into a bucket of paint, getting tar all over it (the worst as it attracts sand/dirt/sawdust) or just dropping it on concrete.
Been in the trades for 50 years, never have I taken a knife apart. When I started, you couldn't take apart a traditional pattern easily, so we didn't. When they did get covered with adhesive/tar/butyl caulk, etc., I would soak the knife in gas overnight. Brush off the crap in the morning, dig out the crap in the handle with a toothpick, wipe it off, put 3in1 on the pivots and a bit on the blade and it was good.
I have knives that I have used for decades on a dirty, gritty, nasty job site that have been soaked in my super salty sweat (and rusted in my pocket, including some "stainless") and they have never been disassembled. I have a CASE copperlock from '76 that has two of the scale pins worn off, the crest is almost smooth, and the beautiful ruby colored scales are muddy chocolate brown from sweaty dirty hands using it as a work knife. Never been taken apart, but had a few hard cleanings in it lifetime.
Nor have any of my larger Cold Steel knives, my Browning Hunter (from '76 as well... I was on a buying tear... 2 knives in one year!) or my ZTs or the poor old RAT 1 that has received the short end of the stick for duty too many times to count.
For me, it isn't a case of *sniff with my nose in the air* of not wanting to learn how to turn a screw, or *snort of disgust for the common folk* they don't maintain their knives to
our standards. (WE are the standard for the entire knife community here, aren't we?)
As a contractor, I maintain my equipment as needed because the tools and their use is how I make my living. That includes my job site cutlery from the lowly utility knife to my personal favorite of the day. Although my standard of keeping the blade/handle/pivot oiled and cleaned without disassembly doesn't meet the standards of some, since it has worked for me in actual use conditions for a half century. I think I will go with what works. Seems a few here agree...
Robert
...)
