Rehandling a slipjoint pocket knife with pins. My way
Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 3:14 am
There is no right or wrong way to do things, everyone has thier own tricks and does thier own thing. This is how I do it, so a single blade slip joint.
NOTE: all pin peening was done on a flat metail surface, despite where the pictures were taken. soft bench blocks are only used for a base when drifting pins out of liners and bolsters.
The donor was a GEC #73 the handles were to be of red deer stag.
I use a thin bladed knife with a convex edge to shear the pins, I don't reccomend you do it this particular way if you are nervous about keeping the handles intact
a look at the guts
Now using a micarta bench block and a punch I punch out the butt, pivot and rocker pins, rocker pins have to be punched out from the liner side becuase they have a head on them
look ma, no pins!
I use a tapered cone punch to knock out the scale and shield pins, this counteracts the flanged portion of the pin. The shield is elongated and the pin is soldered to the back of it so you'll have to put it between the jaws of a vice so the shield can freely fall out
pins out, remove scale
Broken down to basic components
The handles to be, stag from european red deer
Trace the old handles out on the underside of the new ones taking note of areas with good texture and the natural shape and thickness of the stag. It is VERY important to remember, when tracing out the handles the front is the back and vice versa. What I mean is, when you trace the front scale it will actually make the slab you traced it on fit the back side of the knife if that makes any sense, it's mirrored
whack off the scrap on the bandsaw
using the disk sander I set my rest just off 90 degrees so if I accidentally grind it too short, when I thin it from the under side it will replace the length. Anyway grind holding it like this until I get to the line.
As you can see it's still a tad long
now I grind it like this being careful to keep the same angles as before, grind a little and check.
now it fits
rough it into the liner holding both tightly together by hand
Repeat for the other side
Now, I like to fit my scales down thin so they retain as much texture as possible and make them more pocket friendly, so thin them down from the underside, you may have to re-tune your length and make certain to keep an eye on the thickness of each scale, important to have them as close to the same thickness as possible.
If the top surface of the stag is not true I touch the ends to the sander to flatten them out a bit trying to to loose too much texture. These are pretty close
check to make sure the liners are not bowed, this will result in gaps between the liner(s) and backspring later on, these are nice and flat
Now I make my mark, now any knives I diassemble are marked with a stamp and not a dremel, pretty tidy looking eh?
a couple drops of superglu to tack them in place and clamp to avoid gaps
now drill out the pin holes, 1/16" for the scale pins and 3/32" for the rocker pin
pin stubs inserted into holes, brass for this knife
flatten the ends of the pins and peen them out with a cross pein hammer on the liner side
Now for this knife the pins nearest to the bolsters are likely to be hafted down, so I peen them to spread them in the hole, spinning will only make a head that will be hafted away allowing the ends of the scale to bow up over time, the pin spread in the hole makes it much tighter. The center pin on the belly side is spun to a nice round head, see the difference?
haft down the heads on the liner side so they do not impede operation of the knife
insert butt and rocker pins. bolster holes are slightly under 3/32" on these GEC #73 so you'll have to turn one down slightly.
Nip them off and file the ends flat, you can see about how much excess I lave myself to allow proper peining/spinning
butt pin peened and center pin spun. bolster pins must be hit face on with the face of a ball pein or the cross pein portion of a hammer to spread them, you can really whack the butt pins becuase there is noting to pivot eliminating the worry of peening it too tight
nice, no gaps!
now I compress the blade and backspring in a vice, easy to line things up with GEC's flush joints
pin drops right in
nip, flatten and pein with a .007 slackener, one will work but I prefer to use two .003 or .004 slackeners, one on each side to help the blade to lay center but I rarely have problems with the GEC slippies
everything hafted down on a 220 belt, I then take it to 600
the hand sand everything smooth with 400 grit wet/dry paper, then onto 600 grit then it's ready to buff
first I buff with a loose wheel and matchless white compound, then another run with a loose wheel and scratchless pink and you get this
Hope you enjoyed. Will be happy to entertain any questions you may have
NOTE: all pin peening was done on a flat metail surface, despite where the pictures were taken. soft bench blocks are only used for a base when drifting pins out of liners and bolsters.
The donor was a GEC #73 the handles were to be of red deer stag.
I use a thin bladed knife with a convex edge to shear the pins, I don't reccomend you do it this particular way if you are nervous about keeping the handles intact
a look at the guts
Now using a micarta bench block and a punch I punch out the butt, pivot and rocker pins, rocker pins have to be punched out from the liner side becuase they have a head on them
look ma, no pins!
I use a tapered cone punch to knock out the scale and shield pins, this counteracts the flanged portion of the pin. The shield is elongated and the pin is soldered to the back of it so you'll have to put it between the jaws of a vice so the shield can freely fall out
pins out, remove scale
Broken down to basic components
The handles to be, stag from european red deer
Trace the old handles out on the underside of the new ones taking note of areas with good texture and the natural shape and thickness of the stag. It is VERY important to remember, when tracing out the handles the front is the back and vice versa. What I mean is, when you trace the front scale it will actually make the slab you traced it on fit the back side of the knife if that makes any sense, it's mirrored
whack off the scrap on the bandsaw
using the disk sander I set my rest just off 90 degrees so if I accidentally grind it too short, when I thin it from the under side it will replace the length. Anyway grind holding it like this until I get to the line.
As you can see it's still a tad long
now I grind it like this being careful to keep the same angles as before, grind a little and check.
now it fits
rough it into the liner holding both tightly together by hand
Repeat for the other side
Now, I like to fit my scales down thin so they retain as much texture as possible and make them more pocket friendly, so thin them down from the underside, you may have to re-tune your length and make certain to keep an eye on the thickness of each scale, important to have them as close to the same thickness as possible.
If the top surface of the stag is not true I touch the ends to the sander to flatten them out a bit trying to to loose too much texture. These are pretty close
check to make sure the liners are not bowed, this will result in gaps between the liner(s) and backspring later on, these are nice and flat
Now I make my mark, now any knives I diassemble are marked with a stamp and not a dremel, pretty tidy looking eh?
a couple drops of superglu to tack them in place and clamp to avoid gaps
now drill out the pin holes, 1/16" for the scale pins and 3/32" for the rocker pin
pin stubs inserted into holes, brass for this knife
flatten the ends of the pins and peen them out with a cross pein hammer on the liner side
Now for this knife the pins nearest to the bolsters are likely to be hafted down, so I peen them to spread them in the hole, spinning will only make a head that will be hafted away allowing the ends of the scale to bow up over time, the pin spread in the hole makes it much tighter. The center pin on the belly side is spun to a nice round head, see the difference?
haft down the heads on the liner side so they do not impede operation of the knife
insert butt and rocker pins. bolster holes are slightly under 3/32" on these GEC #73 so you'll have to turn one down slightly.
Nip them off and file the ends flat, you can see about how much excess I lave myself to allow proper peining/spinning
butt pin peened and center pin spun. bolster pins must be hit face on with the face of a ball pein or the cross pein portion of a hammer to spread them, you can really whack the butt pins becuase there is noting to pivot eliminating the worry of peening it too tight
nice, no gaps!
now I compress the blade and backspring in a vice, easy to line things up with GEC's flush joints
pin drops right in
nip, flatten and pein with a .007 slackener, one will work but I prefer to use two .003 or .004 slackeners, one on each side to help the blade to lay center but I rarely have problems with the GEC slippies
everything hafted down on a 220 belt, I then take it to 600
the hand sand everything smooth with 400 grit wet/dry paper, then onto 600 grit then it's ready to buff
first I buff with a loose wheel and matchless white compound, then another run with a loose wheel and scratchless pink and you get this
Hope you enjoyed. Will be happy to entertain any questions you may have