All About Pocket Knives

I posted this on another forum where automatics are the primary discussion, but thought I'd post it here just to show what kind of a turnaround you can make in a knife's condition.
The dreaded, copy and paste:

This is probably the worst condition/ most difficult Italian I've ever worked on. It looked like it had been run over by a truck. Front bolsters were smashed almost flat, big hammer marks and gouges in them, pivot pin poorly replaced, tons of slop in the blade, handles dried out, cracked and busted with pieces missing, button missing, kickspring broken, blade bent, filed, and ground among other things. Was unsure how well it was going to turn out after I seen it in person. After I got it just about done the blade stopped locking closed, re-disassembled and found out there was debris under the sear that I missed so it wasn't properly engaging the blade. Reassemble and finish, test fire a couple times and hear the dreaded "snap". Button stops working. Arrrgh. re-re-disassemble button return spring broke, so I make a new one and re-re-assemble. Now it works like a new one, locks tight and fires hard. Was able to get all the dents out of the bolsters, reshape and resolder them, straightened the liners, added new scales, made a new button, new kickspring, and cleaned up all the metal. I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out. Hope it's owner likes it.

Before pics are modest about showing the extent of the damage:




Here's some after pics:








P.S all those pins were hand peened, with enough practice you can peen pins so round they almost look spun.

Very nice restore Kaleb!
Something tells me your customer got his money worth, because that was obviously a labor of love!

Are those things actually worth restoring in that condition? Sounds like a few hundred bucks worth of work you did on that and looks like a million bucks.

WOW!

I was sure you would have to get it all re-plated...... you did a great job keeping the original parts !

Well done !

IH, yes they are worth restoring usually if it's an older knife from at least the 50's. Fulcrum releases aren't too common these days either. All the work was well under $175 and he did get his moneys worth, it went really smooth and faster than I had anticipated until other things decided to start breaking after I had it finished; so that made up for it LOL. On today's market it should bring over $200 Besides monetary value, the knife held sentimental value to it's owner so it was a good choice to have it restored.

TJ, no replating at all. The blade was stainless and got my usual blade cleaning process, the bolsters are nickel silver, so everything just got reformed and a good thorough polishing.

Absolutely Amazing MM!! Bet it's kinda hard to send one like that back to the owner?

WB