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Surprised at Schrade Walden construction

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:54 am
by almyjmoore
This is my first attempt at taking a pocket knife apart and I was surprised at the way it was constructed. The knife is a Schrade Walden 881Y. It is not built like any of the exploded views I have seen or like any description I have read about in our tutorials.
Our expert knife guys will not be surprised by this but I hope it will be helpful to some of the less experienced collectors like myself.
Below, I have listed some of the unexpected things I encountered.
1. The four holes in the bolster liners [closest hole to each bolster] don't have pins and
don't seem to have any function.
2. The inside sub assembly is made up of (3) blades, (1) backspring and the brass center divider.
3.Bolsters are pinned to the bolster liner and the pins do not go through the blade pivot holes to hold the blades in place.
4.The brass bolster liners have slotted holes under the bolsters that fit over the pins in the (3) blade sub assembly. The bolster liners are then snapped into the slotted holes. The pins that hold the (3) blades and (1) backspring in place are loose but everything tightens up when the bolster liners are snapped in place.
5. By removing the single back spring pin, the knife can be taken apart in (4) pcs.:
(a) (2) bolster liners with bolsters
(b) the back spring that handles two blades
(c) the sub assembly of (3) blades, the single back spring and the center divider

Re: Surprised at Schrade Walden construction

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 2:25 am
by muskrat man
Swinden key (or keyhole), typical schrade assembly. Dale has went over this many times.

Re: Surprised at Schrade Walden construction

Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:36 am
by almyjmoore
Thanks for the information muskratman. Now that I know that the keyhole slot is called a swinden key it makes it a lot easier to do a search in Knife Repair & Restoration. I searched every hit I could find and was unable to find an explanation of how it worked or a picture of the swinden assembly. Mostly what I found was how to bypass the swinden mechinism by drilling through the bolsters and pinning through the blade pivots. I will go back a check every swinden hit to see if I missed anything. I still have to put this thing back together. Even though I think it will be simple, I may avoid some pitfalls by reading what more experienced people have encountered. Thanks, Al