All About Pocket Knives

Some of you may have seen my post to this effect in the Knife Parts Swap forum.

I decided to start a new thread here with regards to the specific project.

The goal is to take apart this old Tested 2308, thin the master blade down, remove the tapered center liner, fabricate a new full length liner and reassemble the knife like a Camillus 72 pattern "whittler".

The end goal is to have a thinner, lighter knife - and a subtle factory custom.

To begin, I will post some before shots of the knife in question.

Lookin' forward to seeing how you progress with this one, should be interesting!
Mike

OK...here is tonight's progress:

OK well tomorrow is another day -

Hope to get this all finished up over the weekend. I am still trying to think of ways to improve on this job. One of my biggest faults is trying to get it all put back together as fast as possible. I admit that this tendency has caused lackluster results on some past projects, but I am learning to pace myself.

One thing I do regret on this job already is that the blades are so worn down. The result is that the frame looks full of air and it seems likely to trap a lot of dust in the pocket. If the master blade was more full and longer it would really fill out the frame nicely. Also, the one broken blade is not pleasing to the eye either. I think there would be enough room in this frame for both of the secondary blades to be fitted in this fashion with very little modification to their original profile.

I might go ahead and get a cheap Frost or Rough Rider whittler and try this exercise again to see if the secondary blades could be made to pivot into each other from opposite ends. I think as long as I used a sunken center liner there would be enough room. I also have an older dotted 6383 that might be the next "victim"...it is not in good shape, but the blades are much fuller than this old '08.

Nice work. I am like you, sometimes I am in too much of a hurry to put thing back together. It's taken alot of time to build up the patience to just go slow and methodical.

Looking forward to seeing the end product.

Well - good news and bad news.

I was putting the pins in tonight when I decided this probably is a project I will opt not to "complete".

I did get the knife predominantly pinned back together and was preparing for final finishing and grinding the excess stock left on the new liner I made flush with the rest of the frame. However - I decided to put the brakes on this, photo-graph it as is, and then set the project aside. Here is why:

1. The knife when closed has too much "open space" in the frame as I alluded to last night. In the pocket this thing will fill up with dust, sand and everything else.
2. The blades, being as they are, contribute greatly to this open space in the frame. I don't have any extra blades for this pattern, and as such I think it is an exercise in futility to actually pin this together with a broken blade in it.
3. While I was doing my preliminary fit-ups, I tested it as a two blade, with one spring and the new center liner / spacer. That is the way I am going to end up finishing this. Then I will set the original center liner, extra spring and blade tang aside for future projects.

This old knife was just too far gone to really rely on for EDC in this current 72-style configuration, which is what I wanted to do. I always have my eye out for 08 pattern whittlers and I feel that someday I will find another, more complete and tight donor knife and try this project again.

In the meantime, I will post for history's sake my "Camillus 72-style Case 08 whittler" - FWIW

In my opinion, this knife pattern would be a great candidate for manufacture as a 72-style stockman/whittler. Preliminary measures show it coming in slightly lighter than the original configuration, and def. a little thinner and sleeker in the pocket.

If anyone has any project 08's for sale let me know what condition and how much. I would like to try this project again with a better knife to start with.

Thanks.

Nice job

tjmurphy wrote:Nice job

thanks! this was a fun project.