All About Pocket Knives

I've gotten fairly good at knife and blade cleanup and polishing. I'm ready to try my hand at this pile of junk knives and try to do some handle replacements before even trying swapping or replacing blades (I'm calling that level 3). Been watching YT vids, reading, and chatting with folks on YT that make it look stupid easy. My shop is pretty well stocked with most of what I think I'll need, pretty handy with my hands to boot.

Seems there is two schools of thought, drive out the pins or cut through them. Cutting looks easy enough but I'm concerned it will bend liners, bolsters or both. So I opted to push them out with a set of short pin punches and my vise (acting as a press) because tapping them with a hammer did absolutely nothing. Well, 2 busted punches later I think its high time I ask the experts. What the heck is the secret? I have ordered some short push pins that should be here today that are 1/16 x 3/4" long and hardened. I'm thinking being much shorter It should have less flex.

Oh, there are the pivot pins, not the ones on the handles or shield. Those I think i'll cut through.

Seems I learn best by doing it wrong the first 10 times.

I actually use both methods. If I'm trying to retain the cover materials, I'll attempt to punch the pins out. If I don't care, then I use a utility razor blade or a thin kitchen knife to split the pins. The key to the second one is getting your blade started without damaging the blade or liners.

Punching the pins out can be a bit of an art form, and some knives just don't want to give those pins up easily. I always use a piece of leather as a backer.

I used only Craftsman pin punches when Sears was still in business because they would replace the broken punches. Now you have to find whichever brand works the best. The 1/6" pin punches usually don't last too long until the pin gets bent or broken. Usually there's enough of the punch left that I can clean up the end and use it as a short punch. I find this works better to start driving a pin out than using one of the longer punches. I use it to get the pen moving.And when I have reached the depth of these short punge I switched to i
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Driving out a pivot pin is not easy, as they have a flare or countersink on either end of the pen.
If I don't cut the pins, I will drill the pin and remove as much of it as I can, then with a ball bur in my Foredom until I have removed most of the center mass of the pin. Then I will use a pin punch to drive out of the back side.
I will drive the pen out if I am trying to protect fragile handle material like MOP, old stag or bone handles, or if it is a small, fragile knife pattern. Otherwise, I usually cut the pins because if it's faster.

Maybe its because I picked an old Camillus to start with, dang thing pressed tight with unicorn tears. Either way the amount of vise pressure that was on that pin before it budged was impressive. My pin punch was a shorty but still looks like a dental pick now. The first set I used were some junk from Harbor Freight and they were long, took almost no pressure to bend that one so I bought some made by Grace, they were certainly harder, but no match for the pin.

The pins are flared on each end, so the outside edge is larger than the hole. They won't push through until you either drill out one end, or cut the pin in the center and push out the pieces from the middle.

Even the pivot is flared?

Yes.
Here is a video that I made a couple of years ago, explaining it.
But basically, with the pin flared on each end, it cannot come out of the knife.
The pivot pin doesn't look to be flared at first, but that is because the hole in the bolster is countersunk, or beveled on each end. The pins is flared until it fills that enlarged hole.

https://youtube.com/shorts/uBVutvcqR_Y? ... EfNGQHwYGx

I did some practice today on some thrift store finds, using the utility blade method I was able to disassemble 5 knives and get them bagged up for eventual reassembly. Only ended up with one hiccup, 2 pinned boosted also popped out so I’ll have to tackle that at some point. I think I’m going to start with some wood handles before trying the bone that I have, just waiting on some pin stock to arrive.