All About Pocket Knives

Hello, I could use some help. I have a Camillus electricians pocket knife that is extremely hard to open. The knife is clean and well oiled. No rust. The blades are so tight that I have to use a pocket screwdriver to open the knife. Are there any tricks of the trade to ease the tension on these blades. Thanks for any advice.

No tricks......just work it....that'll help eventually!!

Try leaving the blades half open for a week or so - in the position where the springs are at maximum stress. That may relieve their strength a little.

the screwdriver blades are notoriously stiff, more so than the knife blade.

Send it to glennbad. I hear he does special things with that pattern

Try some Quick Release Oil ( ebay and Amazon has it). Get the one that comes with an extended point
tip with a barreled syringe. I just used it yesterday on my Case 6308.

One small drop on all movable joints is all you need.

Best of luck.

Bob

Ditto on the Quick Release Oil. I've been using it for several years now and it's amazing what it will do for a blade that's hard to open or for one that has little or no snap. Good stuff.

Drill out the pin and install a new one, using a .007-ish slackener during assembly....a little more work than oiling, which I don't think is the issue---you've already stated it's well-oiled--- but, if that doesn't do it, it gets a lot trickier (bent blades or mis-aligned pin hole). It's a doable repair, even for a relative beginner. Good luck.

What is a "slackener " ?
kj

kootenay joe wrote:What is a "slackener " ?
kj

KJ,
From someone with no talent for repairs, I will say that I imagine it to be like the gauge you used to use to set the points in your distributor when you tuned up your auto engine.

Ray

A slackner is a thin piece of metal with a known dimension (thickness) with a slot cut in it to go around the pin. It's used when pinning the pivot pin of a pocket knife to make sure you don't get the joint so tight the blade won't open and close freely, yet won't be so loose you have blade wobble. When I worked for NCR, we called that "snug but free". I made one out of an 8 thousandths feeler gauge. I think it should have been more like .010".

Guess I'm not understanding why re pinning the knife is being suggested for a blade that is too tight? If you have pinned the knife and the blades are too tight and hard to open it is just standard practice to tap the utility knife blade between the liner and the blade. This loosens the blade up just a bit. You can do it on both sides of a two blade knife. Kaleb even created a specialty tool for this operation to keep from scratching up the blade. When a knife like a canoe with higher bolsters is pinned it is easy to bend those bolsters in slightly when pinning. Tapping the utility blade gently between the blade and liner will take care of this. HOWEVER if the blade is too hard to open due the strength of the backspring you can work with the pins all you want and that isn't going to do any good at all. That is a separate problem and requires another fix.

Indeed, without the knife in hand, it's hard to say what the correct fix would be. My issue with the utility blade fix, if used, is pulling the flush pin into the bolster, affecting the finish of the knife, and leading to probable wobble in the future. It's your knife, do what you think is best, or within your skill set