The Case of the Disappearing Blade

[KaminskiJL]

Hello again, I am grateful for having all of you knife experts to ask my silly questions to.
I have a knife. It's a 2 blade serpentine jack. The secondary blade has little snap and when you close it the blade falls completely into the well to the point that you have to get something to pry it back out. Is there anything that I can do to stop this from happening?

[KaminskiJL]

Additional info - I lied, not a serpentine jack, just a 2 blade jack. Took a few pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. Right now the knife is assembled on some nails. I have had this knife apart and re-assembled(with peened pins) 3 times with the same problem. Only the secondary blade has the pronlem, the main blade sits upright and the nail nick is easily accessible. It appears that there is enough kick left on the blade to stop it from dropping down into the blade well like it does.

[KaminskiJL]

Sorry, still new to this forum... here are the pictures.

[Bill DeShivs]

Duplicate post

[Bill DeShivs]

It may appear there is enough kick to prevent the blade going too low-but there must not be.

Have you tried swapping the backsprings?

While the knife is apart, you need to hamer out the "stop" portions of the tangs. It's obvious they are peened from years of opening.

While you are at it, you can hammer the kick on the pen blade to be larger.

It appears your pivot pin stock may be too small a diameter also.

[KaminskiJL]

Hello Bill, Thanks for your advice. Yes, I have swapped the backsprings. There was no noticeable difference in the way the secondary blade behaved . I was considering soldering a shim onto the secondary backspring to shallow up the blade well. I did not hammer out the kick. I will do that as well. Not sure what you mean by the "stop" portions of the tang, but I will hammer out the tang and ensure that there is no peened or rolled metal on it. Again, thanks for your advice.

[ea42]

It looks like your blades are backwards, at least that's the way it appears in the photo. The blade with the long pull should be in the back. That's really excessive drop, was it like that when you got it? Short of the spring being broken I can't think of anything that could cause that other than a lot of wear on the spring and/or the tang (should be visible and you would have no snap, the blade might even be floppy) or someone getting carried away with sanding down the kick. Instead of soldering a shim in there you can "bump" the spring where the kick comes in contact with it by hammering a divot in the spring with a punch.

Eric