How to fix this?
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2019 3:35 pm
A friend of mine dropped off this knife the other day for me to look at. It is a nice old bone handled Pal camper style knife with the two piece can opener. It is obviously in good condition and worth a few bucks at least. The problem is the the tiny spot weld on the two piece can opener has broken so now when you pull the can opener out to use it, the lower part stays in the blade well and just the top portion comes out. It needs to have the two parts fastened back together. I see a few options for fixing this, some good, some not so good.
1. Use the wire feed and try to put just a dot of weld in the same place as the original spot weld. Would require knife to be dis assembled, might be kind of risky to the heat treating of the blade. (You know Bubba, I think I can lay a bead on that with the wire feed!) lol
2. Silver soldering the two parts together. Would require knife to be dis assembled. Not sure how strong this would be if the blade was used to open a can. Leverage when opening the can could cause the two parts to separate.
3. Drill a tiny hole thru both pieces, countersink the holes on both sides and pin with a steel pin. Could probably be done without dis assembling the knife. Would most likely be visible when done and might detract from the knifes value. The metal in the 2 parts is likely to be hard, but a carbide drill bit would do it.
4.I saw this recently here on AAPK, but can't remember who mentioned it, a process that I believe was called laser spot welding. It was described that the heat is so intensely localized that you could hold the part in your hand while welding it. Probably would not require dis assembly of the knife. Does anyone remember seeing this or who posted it?
Probably the only work this spot weld has to do is hold the two pieces together to facilitate opening the blade and having both parts come out together. In use I think both parts bear against the spring.
1. Use the wire feed and try to put just a dot of weld in the same place as the original spot weld. Would require knife to be dis assembled, might be kind of risky to the heat treating of the blade. (You know Bubba, I think I can lay a bead on that with the wire feed!) lol
2. Silver soldering the two parts together. Would require knife to be dis assembled. Not sure how strong this would be if the blade was used to open a can. Leverage when opening the can could cause the two parts to separate.
3. Drill a tiny hole thru both pieces, countersink the holes on both sides and pin with a steel pin. Could probably be done without dis assembling the knife. Would most likely be visible when done and might detract from the knifes value. The metal in the 2 parts is likely to be hard, but a carbide drill bit would do it.
4.I saw this recently here on AAPK, but can't remember who mentioned it, a process that I believe was called laser spot welding. It was described that the heat is so intensely localized that you could hold the part in your hand while welding it. Probably would not require dis assembly of the knife. Does anyone remember seeing this or who posted it?
Probably the only work this spot weld has to do is hold the two pieces together to facilitate opening the blade and having both parts come out together. In use I think both parts bear against the spring.
