All About Pocket Knives

I got an 80T on the bay--got it cheap along with a Kamp King which went to my nephew. The King is sweet and almost new.

The 80T is not in such great shape--the master (clip) blade is pretty loose/wobbly. I think the knife is made with the Swinden key--don't know how to tell for sure, but I see no evidence of pins in the bolster. The other blades are much tighter.

Is there any way to tighten the blade? I thought about putting it in my wood jawed vise, but didn't know if this was proper or would work with a knife with a Swinden key.

At some point I'd like to try to figure out how to convert the knife to a single blade like Orvet does. The clip blade is essentially 100%, but the sheepsfoot has a broken tip. Until I learn how to do that, I'd like to tighten up the clip blade.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

The last non-Swinden 8OT that were made would have been about 1962 or 1963. That is a guesstimate but it was some time in the early to mid 1960s, during the Schrade-Walden days.

There is no way I have been able to figure how to tighten the inner Swinden rivet accurately so that the knife will go back together. I am sure if you had the original tech specs with the settings for the machine that assembled the inner assembly and you had access to a decent modern machine shop (neither of which I have), a good engineer could figure out a method to tighten the Swinden rivet.

Lacking all that the only thing to do is take the knife apart, drill the bolsters out to take a Swinden rivet, and pin the blades through the bolsters. Since you want to get rid of the two other blades it makes the task easier by half.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Dale.

I'm sure it's got the S rivets. Guess I'll look through the tutorials and see if I can't make me a one blader.