Rebending Locking Liners

A bit of an odd question -

I'm not actually looking to make a folding knife, but rather modify one that I have at the moment.

For those of you who are familiar, it's a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 with a Compression lock. Info on the particular lock can be found http://spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/knifeanatomy.php under the 'locks' portion.

Basically, there have been 2 main 'runs' of this knife, with the first having some trouble with the ball detent of the lock not fully disengaging from the blade, even when the liner was pushed all the way across to the scale. This made for a sticky blade movement when closing/opening the knife. Comparing the two runs, it seems like in the first, the tip of the locking liner was curved in towards the blade more.

Spyderco fixed this problem partially by moving the 'bend' in the liner more towards the butt end of the knife to improve leverage.

I'm looking to do that same thing with the 'first run' unit that I have, to try and improve the blade movement.

Question is, what's the best way for unbending and then rebending the liner in a slightly different spot? It's a stainless steel liner. Would cold bending work?

David

David,

I can't really answer your question but I can offer an opinion.

It would seem that because of the 'springyness' of the steel the lock is made of, it would be hard to unbend it. Even at a spring temper, most springs I have ever tried to adjust or modify would break fairly easily if pushed a little too hard. Of course, if it's like a lot of Spidercos, you won't be able to get it apart to work with the spring anyway.

Good luck,
Carey