All About Pocket Knives

Hello All,

I am making a replacement lever for an antique back lever knife. Do any of you have a decent graphic depicting the side-view of a good lever? The original lever was badly worn and got pretty mangled removing it from the backspring. The front end looks like an offset or compound radius with a small, angled flat at the bottom and a "peak" at the top. I'll be making that portion by hand (SWAG), but would like to have a slightly better idea of what to do. Thanks a lot! - John

Update:

Although I still welcome advice and/or graphics, I managed to stack the old, beat-up lever onto the pin next to the new one and traced the profile oversized. I am slowly grinding up to the new, oversized profile on a disk sander and all is going well so far. Here are a couple pics. I'll keep you posted...

-John

Looks like you’re making a good go at it! Post pics of it when your done.

It would have been easier to just bend one up.

Hi Bill,

You're right, but I'm a retired machinist and "when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail." So far, the new lever is much better than the original (bent) one. It is now functioning well, and I am working on cosmetics and ergonomics. The new lever is much bigger than the original, but its a big knife, so it actually looks right. The picture below is where it was this morning. I'll post another when it is done. - John

P.S. You replaced the spring and put a bail on my (Linder) Hubertus automatic last year. Thanks again, it is still working great!

Here's a mod I did some time back. I had to remake the lever also, as it was badly worn from use.
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Don't know if that helps at all.

Looks good!

I like what I am seeing. Keep those pictures coming!

You sure spruced up that old soldier, Glenn, it looks teriffic, well done!

Wow Glenn, that's amazing work and quite an upgrade! Jigged bone improves everything. The last picture was very helpful; tells me I might want to tweak my working geometry a bit more. What did you use for pin material for the new lever? I've been using a .086" gage pin for working on it. My original pin was brass, but its a very strong spring and everything is under a lot of torque in use... Whatever material I use, I should be able to create a the pin on my mini lathe.

I'm interested in the history of this knife pattern. Yours was apparently made in Trier, and mine is marked "Coles NY" (probably an importer rather than manufacturer. Also mine has no bolster. The lever bears against the brass liners and wood scales. Still very cool knives. Mine sounds like a bear trap when it locks open and is in pretty good shape for its age (probably because the bad lever kept it from getting much use). Thanks a lot! - John

I think I did everything in NS, including the bolsters. I believe that pin was NS also. I guess depending on the spring strength, you may want to go with something like a 410 SS

Both pictured knives are (probably) German.
Coles was a US importer.
The pattern is actually a folding butcher knife pattern. Many were made by F. Herder in Solingen for retailers all over the world.

Well, Its finally done and I'm real happy with how it turned out. I made the pin from a SS 10-32 screw turned down on my mini-lathe. It is probably 300 series SS, because it is not magnetic. I tightened up the blade pivot pin removing all the lateral play, but now there is a little vertical play I never noticed before. could be from getting all of the crud out of the mechanism. I also re-ground the primary grinds on the blade removing a lot of unevenness and sharpened it. Thanks all for the help and encouragement here are a couple pictures. - John

Great work!

Yes, that looks beautiful!

Really nice job!

Thank you all for the compliments. Of course I didn't take any "before" pictures, but I'm already on to the next project. Turning this two-blade "The Hatch Cutlery" knife into a single-blade wharncliffe. One blade is broken and the other was very chewed up. I re-profiled/ground the chewed up blade first to see if it would be a worthwhile project and it looks very promising. I have very little experience working with pins, so hopefully I can get it done without further damaging the scales. I have already learned a lot from the tutorials on this website. I'll start a new thread for it as things move along. - John