All About Pocket Knives

Well, since the weekends are my days off I figured I'll go ahead and post some on specialty tools and common hand tools.

First are the knives, I call them shearing knives. They are nothing real special, a chopped down kitchen knife will do. You can make this yourself from any old kitchen knife. I prefer a short (2" at most) sheep foot blade, the edge must be thin, but not too thin, it also must be tempered hard or else the edge won't cut the pin, it will just roll and dent. I have an Eko slicer I'm going to chop down tonight to replace the cheap Chinese fillet knife that has taken a beating, it was tempered too soft.

The process is pretty self explanatory; here are some pictures to guide you. (NOTE: before attempting to shear the pins you must first grind off the head of the rocker pin and tap it out using a punch)
I tape up the blades first so they don't get damaged and to keep my fingers safer. I then place the knife in between the tang and liner (when the blades are open) and tap in in-between them with a hammer like shown here.


Then I remove the knife and tap it down from the top like shown here


I then hammer it all the way through the pin


Do this to each side of the knife if it is a multi blade knife

Then do likewise to the rear pin, unless it is a bare head type knife with no rear bolster, then just remove the pin like you did the rocker pin.


Tap out all the pin stubs with a punch, and then you have the knife taken apart


Now, on to the others, A good hammer is a necessity, I use a ball peen, a tack hammer is handy to have around too. You can use these for everything from peening pins, straightening bent liners and reattaching bolsters.


Also in that picture from left to right are split ring pliers, side cutters, needle nose pliers and lineman’s pliers, all are handy to have in the shop, but the lineman’s and side cutters are by far the most used in my shop for cutting pins.

Files, not enough can ever be said about files. They are used for countless jobs in the shop, from truing to file work to shaping handles. I keep a set of needle files for intricate work, single and double cut mill files and a couple chainsaw files. The single cuts are for metal, the doubles are for fine tuning the shape of handles, chainsaw files for file work, I also try to keep rat tail and triangular files on hand too.


One of the most important tools for reassembly is the slackener. In Ben Kelly's "The complete book of pocket knife repair" he states that he uses a slackener of .015 in thickness. This works for some multi blade knives, but I have found that it leave way too much play in the blade when open with single blade, and even some multi blade knives. I use anywhere from .005 to .010. The best thing to use IMO is feeler gauges I learnt this from a local embellisher. Notches need to be cut in the ends of them so it will surround the pivot pin on three sides when in place. Basically what this does it allows head space for the blade to pivot smoothly and to snap open and closed. You can use a thinner gauge than you think to remove play, but sometimes you have no choice but to leave the play, because (and I have done this many times in the past) if you keep going to thinner gauges, eventually you loose your snap and it doesn’t open or close with any authority like it should. I don't usually go below .007 but on some case copperlocks since they have the pivot bushing you can go down to .005.


Punches, I keep a center punch for marking parts for drilling, but I use a homemade punch most of the time. I have a set of punches that are decent quality, but the smallest always seems to break on me, so I made my own. Nothing fancy, just a modified Phillips screwdriver. It is tapered for strength; it won't break and has only bent on one occasion when I really had to hammer on it. The taper also allows me to knock out anywhere from 1/16" to 5/32" pins without trouble. The larger punches are good for setting bolsters and other odd jobs in the shop.


After you take that knife apart, you won't be able to get it back together without pins. I buy 1/16", 3/32" 1/8" and 5/32" brass and nickel from Jantz knife supply, shipping isn't cheap so if you order you better stock up. If the knife has steel bolsters, I usually use a nail; they are tough and work excellent. If the hole is an odd size, you’ll have to turn down a larger pin to fit the hole, I use a belt sander, and a drill or drill press and let it spin on 150 grit sandpaper between my fingers. Here is my parts box, always keep scrap parts, even short lengths of pin, pin stock isn't cheap and you'll be able to use even the shortest scraps sooner or later, here is part of my box containing small parts and short pre cut pins.


Questions?

If anyone is interested, I have a complete rebuild coming up Monday on a case hawkbill, if anyone is interested I could do a step by step tutorial of how I do it, from start to finish. This one will have visible pins, file work, maple burl, lanyard hole-the works.

by all means , would love to see the step by step MM

MM Do you use a back spring press when installing blades?

Stockman

Thanks, Kaleb...
I am very interested.
...CCBill...

Stockman, that will be in tommorow's post, as well as the tutorial. I use a vice to compress the springs, and in certain cases, compress the blade. I'm glad there is a bit of interest

I have a Camillus Hawkbill that I bought to work over and I'd love to see how you do it before I just blindly jump in. Is cutting the pins the best way to get them out, or can you grind down the ends. I can imagine that if the holes in the bolsters are actually tapered a little to allow for the pins to expand and lock things in place cutting is probably the only way to get the pins out.

This knife also has a very large stand off stud that keeps the blade from even going into the handle when closed. Is this normal, or should some metal be take off to allow the blade to at least let the tip rest inside the handle?

The kick is a peculiar part of a knife blade. If it’s too long the knife wont close all the way, if it’s too short the blade will hit the back spring and damage the edge or the nail nick will disappear beside the liner and then you’ll have to cut an easy pull or draw the kick back out with a hammer. To tune the kick is like tuning any part of a knife; take it off a little at a time, just until it closes where you need it to go. I have tuned the kicks on a lot of knives and it isn’t hard if you go slowly. Use a dremel and a sanding drum or a file; I don’t trust grinders any further than I can throw them, they almost always take too much of the kick off before you even know what’s happening, I know from experience.

Yep, I would love to see the step by step too muskrat man

Is cutting the pins the best way to get them out, or can you grind down the ends. I can imagine that if the holes in the bolsters are actually tapered a little to allow for the pins to expand and lock things in place cutting is probably the only way to get the pins out.

Here is a poor drawing (I draw better on paper than a computer screen) to help show how the pin mechanics work.

The brown represents handles, blue is the spring, red is the bolsters, green is the pin holes. Notice how the hole starts out larger and then it necks down to a smaller (the actual) diameter? This cavity prevents the peened head to pull through the bolster which in turn prevents the pin from sinking below the surface of the bolster. Some knives have this, others don't. I have noticed that most case and cammilus knives have this type of contruction. This type ofcontruction prevents the knife to be easily pryed apaprt, cutting them with a knife is much easier and more succesful and does less (no) damage to the knife.

Thanks MM,

That's what I was imagining is the case with bolsters without having seen it for real.

Then there are also the pins that look as though each side have been mushroomed like the spring pin on the Camillus 1760. (See my Icon picture). I am thinking that a hollow in the end of a punch and the steel that you put your knife on would be the way to go there.

Don't worry, you can answer that when you come to it. Something for the future.

I have a feeling this is going to be a very busy area here at AAPK.

Al

BrokenCamillus wrote:Thanks MM,

That's what I was imagining is the case with bolsters without having seen it for real.

Then there are also the pins that look as though each side have been mushroomed like the spring pin on the Camillus 1760. (See my Icon picture). I am thinking that a hollow in the end of a punch and the steel that you put your knife on would be the way to go there.

Al

Actually, each end has been mushroomed. They are usually spun, but on some older knives they are peened. a dremel with a round cutter and a steady hand will remove this head and not damage the scale, should you want to keep it for re-installing or a future project.


tan is handles, green is pin, blue is spring

Man, this stuff is great. I'm learning so much already. I was waiting on pinstock to put my hammer brand back together- now I may just use a nail. Good tip. So another question. How is a pin spun? What is used to do this?

Thanks for putting up with all the questions
Nick

The heads are spun in a press, I purchased a head spinning tool from jantz that you use in a drill press, but I have not been able to use it succesfully, so I just peen heads then smooth them with sandpaper.

Great post muskrat man! My first time in this area so keep going. I would love to see you do a start to finish on the hawkbill.

Tis a shame that this old information no longer exists in pictures....

i'll try to take some new pictures to supplement and upload when I have time.

We have lost a lot if great information over the years because the pics where hosted off site.
Photo hosting sites come and go and people switch photo hosting sites from time to time and the link is then broken.
This is why Bryan decided that all posted pics must be up loaded to AAPK and AAPK will host the pictures as long as we are here.


I forgot what the pics on this topic were Kaleb, I hope you can find them or recreate them.