All About Pocket Knives

A guy that works in the shop where I work found a Western 542 in a ditch while walking. He knew I was a knife nut and liked to work on knives. (I ONLY like to work on my own...... I have a phobia of screwing up someone else's things).... ANYWAY... he ask if I would try to fix it. I have another fault.... I have a hard time saying NO.... Anyway... I told him I would give it a try.
Here is the before... as found..... Here is where the lever was broken.... SO first, I got out my sheet of stainless and dang if it wasn't almost the same size as the broken lever. I started by drilling an indexing hole and then scribed the shape of the lever with some extra for the broken off piece. I hate trying to cut this stuff so I drilled a BUNCH of holes close to the edge and the cut between the holes with a hacksaw. Here is the roughed out piece.... LOL..... spikey isn't it.... I used my sander to get the new piece as close as I could with the new area as a blank. Then I had to start filing and fitting to make the lock area fit the blade. I did finally get the lever to fit and working like it should. This took several trial fits to finally get the lever like I wanted it. Then came the clean-up. Here is the final result. I was pleased with the final result. I just gave it to the owner and he was pleased too. I told him "no charge" since it was a learning experience for me. He said he was going to pass it on to his son when he got old old enough for a knife...... Did my heart good to hear that. Mike

Great job Mike!
We often don't know what we are capable of until we try.
Nice work and now it is a family heirloom for someone!

Thanks Dale.... It was a good exercise for me and YES.... I am glad that knife will live on as a family keep sake.

Mike

That knife turned out great!! Worth the effort to save that one.

BRAVO, Mike!!
Looks great!!!

Great exercise in patience working with that SS in such a fashion.
Good work.

Fantastic job Mike!! That turned out great!! Not only did you bring an old, very good quality knife back from the dead, you also made a difference in someone's life, for the good I might add. My kind of story. Well done Sir.

__________
Mike

Awesome job Mike!

Thanks y'all.
It sure was a good learning experience for me. I have learned so much about the construction of pocket knives by just being a member of this forum and learning from y'all. The biggest step for me is always digging in and taking a knife apart. But y'all have given me confidence. Thanks to everyone!

Mike

Great save!

Great fix Mike, thanks for sharing.

Some of the most rewarding things I have done were trial and error, definitely a proud moment when you finally get it just right.

Looks like a solid piece of work, nice save!

glennbad wrote:Some of the most rewarding things I have done were trial and error, definitely a proud moment when you finally get it just right.

Looks like a solid piece of work, nice save!

Thanks for that understanding comment Glenn. I can see you have felt the same before.
Mike

Meridian_Mike wrote:(I ONLY like to work on my own...... I have a phobia of screwing up someone else's things)
Mike

Facing your demons/phobias is the only way to overcome them. Your parenthetical comment gave me a good chuckle because after seeing your awesome save on that Western LB, I could see you getting swamped with requests for knife repair work from AAPK members. Perhaps it's time to consider quitting your day job and doing knife repair full-time...there's certainly no shortage of demand for skilled knife mechanics.


~Q~

QTCut5 wrote:

Meridian_Mike wrote:(I ONLY like to work on my own...... I have a phobia of screwing up someone else's things)
Mike

Facing your demons/phobias is the only way to overcome them. Your parenthetical comment gave me a good chuckle because after seeing your awesome save on that Western LB, I could see you getting swamped with requests for knife repair work from AAPK members. Perhaps it's time to consider quitting your day job and doing knife repair full-time...there's certainly no shortage of demand for skilled knife mechanics.


~Q~

Well.... maybe as a retirement money supplement job.
I guess I am still getting my feet wet when it comes to working on other peoples knives...... Some day maybe..... maybe.... maybe.....LOL.

Mike

Well Done

That turned out pretty sweet. Nice resurrection

Very nice, Mike.
Good save.

That is nice but I'm very curious as to why you didn't have to heat treat it? When I cut a spring from strip steel it has to be heat treated. Does SS not have to be heat treated? When I need a spring I usually look in the junk box first and try to find something close. Heat treating steel isn't hard but it can go bad on you and the spring snap like a pretzel. It saves time to try and rework an existing spring.

I am so glad I read this thread. That repair job is fantastic. You have given me a great idea. I never thought about drilling the stainless and cutting w/ a hacksaw. I don’t have a whole lot of machines that you do this with, but I do have a drill and a hacksaw. Inspired. Thank you so much.
That knife sure cleaned up nice.

just bob wrote:That is nice but I'm very curious as to why you didn't have to heat treat it? When I cut a spring from strip steel it has to be heat treated. Does SS not have to be heat treated? When I need a spring I usually look in the junk box first and try to find something close. Heat treating steel isn't hard but it can go bad on you and the spring snap like a pretzel. It saves time to try and rework an existing spring.

The lockbar on a knife like this western or a buck 110 or schrade lb7 doesn't HAVE to be tempered (although it's preferable that it is) because it's not actually flexing, it's just the lock. The small spring steel rod in the butt end of the knife it was actually flexes.

muskrat man wrote:

just bob wrote:That is nice but I'm very curious as to why you didn't have to heat treat it? When I cut a spring from strip steel it has to be heat treated. Does SS not have to be heat treated? When I need a spring I usually look in the junk box first and try to find something close. Heat treating steel isn't hard but it can go bad on you and the spring snap like a pretzel. It saves time to try and rework an existing spring.

The lockbar on a knife like this western or a buck 110 or schrade lb7 doesn't HAVE to be tempered (although it's preferable that it is) because it's not actually flexing, it's just the lock. The small spring steel rod in the butt end of the knife it was actually flexes.

That makes a lot of sense. I should have considered that. One other question I have is on the drilling of SS. That isn't easy to do. You can go through a lot of drill bits in a hurry. Did you slow the speed down on the drill press or did you use special bits to get all of those holes drilled?

just bob wrote:
That makes a lot of sense. I should have considered that. One other question I have is on the drilling of SS. That isn't easy to do. You can go through a lot of drill bits in a hurry. Did you slow the speed down on the drill press or did you use special bits to get all of those holes drilled?

Well... to answer that question.... I have a friend who supplies me with drill bits. He has a way of getting drill bits (from a certain business) that fail to meet certain requirements (length, diameter maybe???, I don't know).... I don't look this gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, I will dull a bit and then I make it into a tool like a punch or scribe. These bits are really nice (government) ones too. I have many plastic bags of these bits so dulling a bit isn't a problem. I might use 4 or 5 but that's OK. Yes, and I did slow down the press and used cutting oil to boot.
Back to the bits.... I have some that are tiny diameter and 6 to 8 inches long.....LOL. Hard to use at that length so I usually cut them down shorter.

Mike

Meridian_Mike wrote:

just bob wrote:
That makes a lot of sense. I should have considered that. One other question I have is on the drilling of SS. That isn't easy to do. You can go through a lot of drill bits in a hurry. Did you slow the speed down on the drill press or did you use special bits to get all of those holes drilled?

Well... to answer that question.... I have a friend who supplies me with drill bits. He has a way of getting drill bits (from a certain business) that fail to meet certain requirements (length, diameter maybe???, I don't know).... I don't look this gift horse in the mouth. Anyway, I will dull a bit and then I make it into a tool like a punch or scribe. These bits are really nice (government) ones too. I have many plastic bags of these bits so dulling a bit isn't a problem. I might use 4 or 5 but that's OK. Yes, and I did slow down the press and used cutting oil to boot.
Back to the bits.... I have some that are tiny diameter and 6 to 8 inches long.....LOL. Hard to use at that length so I usually cut them down shorter.

Mike

Many plastic bags of 6-8” government drill bits!!
What a gig you have going there. That’s a good friend and little return on those tax payment through the years.

Tony_Wood wrote:
Many plastic bags of 6-8” government drill bits!!
What a gig you have going there. That’s a good friend and little return on those tax payment through the years.

LOL..... yep.