Colonial WW2 Pilot's Survival Knife Saw Replacement

[eveled]

I’ve always thought these would look nice with ebony scales.

[herbva]

It seems like at least half of these pilot's survival knives that I see have a broken saw blade. Other than the saw, these are among the sturdiest, heaviest, folding knives that I have ever worked on and are truly "built like a tank". So I've never been able to understand why they put such a thin, fragile saw blade in them. Anyway, I'm sure that I'm not the first person who has contemplated replacing a broken saw blade in one of these. I think I may have even seen a post about doing this some time ago, but I haven't been able to find it. I've had a nicer one of these knives with a broken saw sitting in my collection for a long time and I've been itching to give it a try for quite a while. But, I was concerned about possibly messing up a WW2 artifact, so I bought a cheap, heavily used "beater" to work on as an experiment, and here it is. I went with a thicker, stronger saw blade as an improvement, but when I get around to replacing the saw on my good one, I've got an old keyhole saw with a nicely rusted, thinner blade in mind for a blade donor.

Sorry, as I frequently do, I forgot to take a picture before I got started, so the first picture is with the patient already disassembled and I had already removed the tang spacers from the broken saw blade. I found a 3-pack of Rigid D-692 keyhole saw blades that looked about right on the bay for $16 plus shipping. They are actually a bit thicker than I wanted, so I had to shave down the tang of the new blade before I transplanted the spacers from the old saw blade. Before I reassembled everything, I gave both blades an overnight "magic patina" treatment with white vinegar. The steel pivot pins in these things are massive (about .148" or close to 5/32). So I drilled out the center of the old pins as much as I could (I wound up eventually using a 7/64 bit) and then was able to cut the pins in the normal way. For replacement pivot pins I used 10d steel nails, that turned out to be perfect, and 8d for the rocker pin, which was also perfect.

I wish that I could find suitable black composite material to use to replace the black composite handle scales, which you can see have shrunk on the ends. (Maybe I'll just fill in the gaps until I find the right material.) Now that I'm looking at the pictures, maybe I'll darken up the blades a bit more. This was a fun project.

Sir, unfortunately I have to try the same thing on a Colonial. I’ve been trying to convince myself I can do it for quite a while, but I see these knives on eBay and it’s easy to tell which ones have been taken apart. Would you mind telling me how you got the pins out so neatly, and did you reuse the original ones? Thank you sir, John

John, whenever I work on old knives that have steel pins, I just use steel nails to make the pins, and they work perfectly. I have accumulated a collection of just about every size of steel nail there is (they are quite inexpensive). The pins that go through the bolsters on this knife are probably the largest pins that I have ever worked with. I just drilled a hole in the center of each one, and then I was able to tap them out quite easily. When I put the new pins in I peened and hafted them just like you do when reassembling any other kind of folding knife. I hope this helps and good luck!

Colossians 3:17

[Bill DeShivs]

Very good job on the Colonial!

Carman- reusing old pins is like reusing toilet paper, you just don't do it.

[CarMan]

Very good job on the Colonial!

Carman- reusing old pins is like reusing toilet paper, you just don't do it.

Thank you sir.