All About Pocket Knives

I posted this over in the Case forums and most agreed it was worth trying to save. It has NO life at all in the backsprings. Not sure if that's from the busted liners or something wrong with the temper or just wear. I can fix the wear. Can backsprings be retempered? What to do about the liners?
Sorry for posting this twice, but it kinda fits in both places I guess

The easiest fix is to find a donor knife of the same pattern with used up blades and put these blades into the donor knife. If that isn’t possible you can make new liners and bolsters using the old ones for a pattern.

Either find new liners or make new liners. springs can be re tempered but I doubt it will be necessary. The cracked liners is probably the problem, if not it's probably a worn tang.

It was suggested that I might try to silver solder it back. Why not?

Saw Filer wrote:It was suggested that I might try to silver solder it back. Why not?

I have tried that, but the soldier was not strong enough the take the tension of the spring and cracked again. The springs create tension by compressing against the end of the blade and the rocker pin. The rocker pin is held in place by the liners. In essence the liner takes most all the tension from the spring. The cracked liner is why you have no snap to the blades: no tension = no snap. The liners are probably weakened from the acid vapors released by the celluloid and may crack in a new place as well.

When I tried it I got new cracks in the liners besides the solder not holding. If it were me I would not waste my time trying to fix the cracked liners, but that is up to you.

orvet wrote:

Saw Filer wrote:It was suggested that I might try to silver solder it back. Why not?

I have tried that, but the soldier was not strong enough the take the tension of the spring and cracked again. The springs create tension by compressing against the end of the blade and the rocker pin. The rocker pin is held in place by the liners. In essence the liner takes most all the tension from the spring. The cracked liner is why you have no snap to the blades: no tension = no snap. The liners are probably weakened from the acid vapors released by the celluloid and may crack in a new place as well.

When I tried it I got new cracks in the liners besides the solder not holding. If it were me I would not waste my time trying to fix the cracked liners, but that is up to you.

X2 soldering liners usually results in failure

On the other thread about this knife, I've been telling hin it will work. I have done it before, but using the right grade of silver solder is just as important as the prep. For cases like these I use a hard silver solder instead of the softer stuff we usually use to solder bolsters on with. A trip to the welding shop for brazing would do the trick also (and probably stronger), but with the hard silver solder, maybe I've just been lucky, but so far I've been able to pull it off. I suggested that he take the knife apart to look for wear where the tang meets the backspring. If it doesn't show any, then we know the liners are the entire problem. So Saw Filer, if you decide not to solder or get it brazed, let me know and I'll send you enough nickel-silver to make those new liners from. Fair enough?

I gotta try it! If it don't work on the first try, I'll still have one to copy. That a generous offer Elvis. Uhh thank you...thank you very much