WIP: trying to Re-scale a Case Sodbuster, when you don't know what your doing

[KYenglish]

I just don't know when I'm beat is the simple answer. Anyway, i have birth year sodbuster jr knives for me and the kids (looking for the wife as well) and one or two of them have been modded by professionals, so sitting around in a flea market i find a Case CV sodbuster jr for little cash and that part of my brain that lilies hearing me swear (later when things are going wrong) pipes up and says "hey, you know what..."

And so I have been playing around with it, first I cleaned of some rust with sandpaper and put a good edge on it (by accident mostly, because it's better then the ones I get when i try it on purpose.) I have since learned that is probably best done AFTER you have finished fooling with it, but i really wasn't sure how far I'd go or how long the project would run.

So then I started sanding the scales into a rounded shape, for more comfort,

then putting a pattern to it (which looks dreadful) for the sake of "learning"

"You know, I bet it's not that hard to take apart"

ran into some problems with that

but eventually figured it out

I was talking with a friend I met for the first time the other day after talking with him online for over a year, and he'd done the same thing, whcih may have been what put it back into my head. Or it's because this week it turns out a few different passarounds I'm in came along at the same time and I've been trying to wipe the "unfinished projects" off my desk. I went and found the sodbuster in it's little forlorn home waiting.

Decided to cover the blade up first (lesson learned), and took some of this age debris of the spring and liners with a mid grit sand paper

cut out some rough scales in walnut

Decided to glue (with locktight) the liners on to the scales and made some holes (1/8" stock is the smallest diameter i have so i figured why not just drill through the liner to

I found out why when I realized the middle (rocker?) pin had to go through the spring which I couldn't drill, so I sanded on of the 1/8" pins down. I also discovered that you have to put the tension in the spring before it'll go together, makes sense now I think about it,

This is when I re-learned the "cover the blade" lesson from earlier. Decided to sand the scales down (I've done some fixed blade handles so this was the part I felt comfortable with the most)

Found out one of the liners had come away from the wood in the process, re-glued and clamped in the vice

Decided "what the hell?"

I also had a very poor pocket knife laying around because I though I could harvest things from it if I ever needed, and so i did. problem is poor pocket knives have poor pocket clips so I sanded a curve into the base and started to round it to fit the scales

Ended up breaking it on both sides to get it to move but they are hairline cracks (picture took ages to get) and I think it'll still work

Looks okay.

Treated scales with linseed oil - this is me taking a break while I think, don't think it should be done at this point or anything)

Managed to get the tension on without causing anymore serious harm to myself

Lined it out and found the tension curved the butt pin, so getting it all together was a bit of a job

very surprised to find myself this far along (even if it did take me two weeks and a few scrapes) without too much (subjective term) trouble, I then found out what I'd done wrong... no gluing folding knife pins, is there? So i scanned the BF world and found some info on "penning" pins, if I remember right, and thought I could make a pin out of a screw remover that doesn't work. i did that, then found out the other side of the pin would just go straight thought he wood block I used to race it (could have figured that out first if my head was even as full as the wood block itself. So I tried a few different things

and frankly have come out empty...you can't tell but i am simultaneously curving knives, axes, pins not to mention myself and a few other things rather violently in some of these pictures, and yet it's still fun

so what I have is a fairly well modified, working case sodbuster jr CV, with pins that aren't secured in any way...sitting back int he house I think I've come up with something (why go by a set of pins and a metal bar when you can risk injury again by "making do" eh? but for now, this is where I'm at....and thanks for sticking with it if you made it this far, it's late, I've been beaten, again, and I am one to ramble under those conditions

Also i think i may have trimmed the pins to far to "penn?" them well, looking at other pictures on the WWW. but, I'll cruse that bridge when it hits me in the face, or something like that.

thanks for looking

 

[TPVT]

first, let me begin by saying I love your "ramblings." good stuff.

this might just be the motivation i need to take a new look at mine. i think i may have all the parts still. though, i may have broken one of the pins.

i think it looks great so far. i am interested to see what you do to peen the pins.

thanks for taking the time to post all the pics....and, of course...the commentary. :thumbup:

 

[bunghole]

Good on you for taping the blade. I severed a tendon putting pressure on the spring. I won't make that mistake again.

 

[357survival]

Awesome.
That is what I have been thinking of doing, and probably exactly what would have occurred.
I think maybe i'll start off with one that has bolsters so I dont' have to repin it, I can just glue the new scales on.
Thanks for sharing! It was an interesting adventure.

 

[tew3006]

Thanks for posting this. I really injoyed watching all the stages.

 

[Char9919]

What size is the pivot stock is it 1/8"? Been thinking about doing this myself.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

GREAT post. Kudos and respects to you, for mustering up the will to give it a go. :thumbup:

I've been (just) thinking about doing something like this with at least a couple Case soddies of mine (and maybe an Eye Brand soddie as well, which has some serious mis-alignment issues with the liners), so your shared experiences with it are very much appreciated. I'm going to bookmark this thread for reference.

My first question, what exactly did you have to do to remove the pivot pin (rivet)? I've been curious for some time as to how easily (or not) those come out.

Nice work!


David

 

[KYenglish]

first, let me begin by saying I love your "ramblings." good stuff.

this might just be the motivation i need to take a new look at mine. i think i may have all the parts still. though, i may have broken one of the pins.

i think it looks great so far. i am interested to see what you do to peen the pins.

thanks for taking the time to post all the pics....and, of course...the commentary. :thumbup:

Thanks, Todd, love to see pictures of yours to

Good on you for taping the blade. I severed a tendon putting pressure on the spring. I won't make that mistake again.

yikes, even more glad I did it now!

Awesome.
That is what I have been thinking of doing, and probably exactly what would have occurred.
I think maybe i'll start off with one that has bolsters so I dont' have to repin it, I can just glue the new scales on.
Thanks for sharing! It was an interesting adventure.

That sounds like a good idea, haven't seen a soddie with bolsters before, (great another thing to add to the list )

Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed watching all the stages.

me to, thanks for saying so

What size is the pivot stock is it 1/8"? Been thinking about doing this myself.

I think it's bigger, I'll have to measure to be sure, i just had it laying around, but i think it's 1/4, I know the bottom pin is 1/8 and the rocker pin was sanded down from the same 1/8" stock.

GREAT post. Kudos and respects to you, for mustering up the will to give it a go. :thumbup:

I've been (just) thinking about doing something like this with at least a couple Case soddies of mine (and maybe an Eye Brand soddie as well, which has some serious mis-alignment issues with the liners), so your shared experiences with it are very much appreciated. I'm going to bookmark this thread for reference.

My first question, what exactly did you have to do to remove the pivot pin (rivet)? I've been curious for some time as to how easily (or not) those come out.
Nice work!

David

What I did and what you should do are different things I think, what i ended up doing was hacking at it with a variety of improvised things (chisel, for one) I ended up taking a coping saw tot he derilin around the pin then cutting the head off it (it's stretched to about twice it's actual diameter looked to me) and that worked. I really started by trying to save all the material but ended up replacing all of it, I just couldn't get the pins out cleanly with the tools i have.

thanks all
(ps I'm thinking about changing my username to "IHAVEKNOWIDEADWHATI'MDOING" feels more honest and edgy )

 

[KYenglish]

okay, part two, and if you do know what you're doing, you may want to look away now, there's having a good laugh and feeling queasy because of what an amateur attempts, you know?

okay, now it's just us idiot - or this idiot and you guys - here's what I came out with;

It had some significant gaps int he back because the pins obviously couldn't be pulled together tight using this method, but ti works, had good snap and pull and everything.

I ended up locktighting the pins (holding the pin facing down for fear of gluing the spring in place), then I sanded to 'itch using the trusty sanding disk on a drill in a vice method. This will spread a pin, I've relied on it before with a fixed blade handle, but not nearly as far or as well as you truly need for a folding knife, hence the locktight. (I honestly always try to avoid glue, don't know why, it's traditional enough, I've seen recipes for it using pine sap from the 18th century)

Anyway, I took it out, bugged my wife with it a bunch - who smiled each time, but less so after the fifth "have I shown you this yet" - then we ended up doing some yard work and it got put to use

I got grit all in the gaps of course but felt I didn't want to go any further because, well, it's a heck of a lot better then the other folding knife I've re-built ...because it doesn't exist, why ruin it?
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So I got to work...hey, if I was willing to leave well enough alone I'd be using a perfectly god yellow plastic sodbuster right now.

I decided the peen method wasn't working for me and that hammering the thing would probably be best. So I used a one hammer and another as a flat surrface (honestly the best solid surface I could find that wasn't curved or to weak to take the pin on) The Hammer really is the "I don't know what I'm doing" tool of choice anyway, after all.

It actually seemed to kinda of work, got rid of the gaps anyway. So I sanded the scratches out the metal, worked to shape the handles some more (oh so much easier before you have the thing together by the way, but I'd rushed it because, I don't know what I'm doing, and wanted to get to the "difficult - read new - part with the pins and stuff quick.)

So I did that, linseed oiled again and after fine sanding back to 600 grit (I left it a little grittier then I have done before because I kind of liked the grip) I had this.

Now there is this bend in the liner (over hammering, or vicing? not sure, and the snap has gone from the return, but the pull is better, and it still works...if rubs a little

Overall I'm pretty happy, and I'm almost sure I can work out the bend in the liner to get the snap back...but maybe another day

Happy customers make it worth while I hear

Thanks all, I now only have two projects left on my work bench, and one of them can just flubbing wait, maybe both

End.

 

[KYenglish]

p.s after the reshaping the pocket clip didn't fit as well, I know, but I've already bent it as far as this cheap metal will allow and for now I don't want to try and curve it anymore in case i snap it. Again, that's for another day.

end...for real this time