All About Pocket Knives

I've been collecting Case knives for a few years and have started to get into any of the older American made knives that I can get on a working mans budget. After looking at some of the great work on here ya'll have inspired me to try and clean some of them up, replace handles and stuff. What is best to clean up an old neglected blade looks like a lot of buffing and polishing for the final shine but how do you get the major discoloration off without damaging the knife. Also is there like a standard size pin for handles? And where can get a pin spinner? ( I think that is what you use on the pin to make it hold the handle please correct me if I'm wrong. Anyways any advice is appreciated. By the way the guys on here do some awesome work you are all very talented craftsmen hopefully I can do 1/2 as good work as ya'll do. thanks

pulse21 wrote:What is best to clean up an old neglected blade looks like a lot of buffing and polishing for the final shine but how do you get the major discoloration off without damaging the knife.

On the blade- Try using very fine sandpaper on blade areas where there is light pitting. Use wet or dry paper & a light oil (like WD-40) and start at 600 or 800 grit and work your way up to 2000 grit. Then you can polish it on out on a buffing wheel.

On the bolsters, use fine sandpaper, but I use it dry usually as I don't want to discolor the handles.Then polish it on out.

pulse21 wrote: Also is there like a standard size pin for handles?

The easy answer is NO! But there some sizes that will usually fit the bill for most of them, though I have so sand a pin down every now & again.
In brass I use 1/16" .064, .072", .081", .0114", 1/8", 3/32" & 5/32"
In nickel silver I use 1/16", .070", .078", .098", .0118, 3/32", 1/8" & 5/32"
Stainless pins are available in similar sizes.

pulse21 wrote: And where can get a pin spinner?

You can buy ones from knife supply houses, or make some. The homemade work better in my experience.
Both Ben Kelly & Adrian Harris' books tell how to make them.
The alternative is to peen them, which I do it that is appropriate to the age of the knife.

Feel free to email me if I can answer other questions for you.

Hope this helps,
Dale

Not much I can add Dale covered most of it.

Great advice thanks for the reply after you mentioned peening I dug a little deeper on here and found some good tutorials thanks I'm gonna start on an old Camillus tonight so we'll see how it turns out anyone have any good recommendations on where to get pin stock at?

I get my brass from my local Ace hardware.
The nickel silver comes from Jantz & Texas Knife Makers Supply.

Dale

For cleaning up an old rusted knife, I use a fine scotchbrite burnishing wheel on my baldor buffer. The tangs can be cleaned up eaisly with a dremel tool and scotchbrite wheels (available from any jewelry supply - I buy them 10-30 at a time on ebay) As I do a lot of these, the dremel tool, with various buffers, wire wheels, etc. is invaluable. Knife & Gun supply in Pinetop AZ has everything I need - pin stock, head spinners, drill bits, adhesive, and etc.

I'm having trouble replacing blades on Schrade Old Timer Knives. With the keyhole type of pin going into the bolsters, does anyone know the best way to do this? I've got the books by Ben Kelly and Adrian Harris, but they don't go into enough detail about this. If there is a tutorial out there, I'd be very happy to find it.

Thanks

knives4sale wrote:For cleaning up an old rusted knife, I use a fine scotchbrite burnishing wheel on my baldor buffer. The tangs can be cleaned up eaisly with a dremel tool and scotchbrite wheels (available from any jewelry supply - I buy them 10-30 at a time on ebay) As I do a lot of these, the dremel tool, with various buffers, wire wheels, etc. is invaluable. Knife & Gun supply in Pinetop AZ has everything I need - pin stock, head spinners, drill bits, adhesive, and etc.

I'm having trouble replacing blades on Schrade Old Timer Knives. With the keyhole type of pin going into the bolsters, does anyone know the best way to do this? I've got the books by Ben Kelly and Adrian Harris, but they don't go into enough detail about this. If there is a tutorial out there, I'd be very happy to find it.

Thanks

The Schrade Old Timer knifes with the keyhole type of pin are known as the Swinden Key system. About the only way of reproducing them is to have the tooling and machines that were at the Schrade factory. Most folks just change a Swinden Key style knife to the common regular pin and bolster style when repairing those type knifes. There is some great information on these forums about the Swinden key system and other repair tricks for knifes. You can post a picture or two and show us some of your work if you want. Everyone here on AAPK loves looking at knifes of any kind.

Thanks for the info. When you change from a Swinden Key to standard Pin, do you have to fill the bolsters and holes? If so, do you just do this with solder or what? I've done a couple that way, but I'm having trouble centering the hole correctly so that everything fits perfect.
As soon as I figure out how to add pictures to this format, I'll post some.

Thanks;
Knives4sale

I have converted so many Swinden knives to pin-through-bolster type that I have lost count.

There is no need to fill in the bolsters unless you plan on thinning them down too far, then I would just replace them.

The trick is to get the pin holes lined up. I usually accomplish this by holding the drill at the back of the small end of the key hole.

Hope this helps,
Dale

Thanks for the help on this. I'm going to try a few next weekend. It's a relief that I don't have to fill the bolsters. This is a great forum and I appreciate everyone's comments!