Slipjoint questions

J

jkf96a

Well-Known Member
Alright folks, working on slipjoint #3. This time I went with brass liners and washers (a la sodbuster). Know some of the basics but have a couple of questions.

One, is everything dry fitted, or do you glue the liners to the handle material?

Two, I'm not satisfied with the snap yet on all of my test fittings. A little too weak. Pin holes are set. I've added a little bend to the spring to give it more tension, once. Questions here are: should the spring bend? Might not be springing enough b/c of the hardness. Should I add some more bend to increase the tension? Snaps open OK but weak, ok at the half stop, but the tip stays about 1/8 too far out on the close.

Any tips/suggestions?

Spinning helicopter of death got me, so no more knife business tonight. Lucky no stitches. Use clamps, folks.
 
Pin the liners together with the blade and center spring pin. Look into the rear spring hole and see how much is showing in the liners. You want about half a hole or just over.

If not try making another set of liners. Cut them out over size and use one of the old liners as a drill guide. Clamp both new liners and one old one together with 2 small vice-grips, use small pieces of leather to help keep from scratching the brass. Drill the blade pivot and the center hole only. Take it apart and flat sand to remove the bur.

Pin the blade, spring and both liners together. Put some pressure on the rear to the spring to hold the blade open and use a fine tip sharpie to mark the rear hole. Take the blade off and rotate the spring (up at the rear – down at the blade) about half to ¾ of a hole and clamp with the vice-grips and leather. Drill the hole using the spring as a guide. That should give you more tension and better snap.

As far as gluing the handle material It’s up to you. Loctite 326 works good for me.
 
Craig is dead on about the drilling for loading the spring,and I glue my scales to my liners and add a small pin also.
Stan
 
Check out my tutorial on the MDA slipjoint in the tutorial section. There is some info in that thread about loading the spring.
 
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