All About Pocket Knives

I wanted to get more input on using an ultrasonic cleaner with a cracked scale. It's an awesome Western that has very slow snap on the close. I think there may be some gunk in the pivot preventing the snap so I thought I'd try an ultrasonic cleaner to start. I am inexperienced with ultrasonic cleaners but wanted to check to see if the cleaner may aggravate and cause further issues with the crack/scale? Quite possibly a dumb question but I just don't want to cause any damage to this knife. I've tried to attach a pic but only get a black picture when I upload. Will keep trying. Thanks much everyone.

I personally wouldn’t. I’d try an overnight soak in CLP in the pivot first, maybe a squirt of ballistol.

I have used an ultrasonic cleaner on a few old knives with cracked bone. And I am talking really cracked like a maze, not pin cracks. So far none of them have got worse from the treatment, or anyway, no pieces of bone fell off. If it is a special knife I might hesitate. Maybe it is just me, but I have not noticed the sonic cleaner making a lot of difference on the snap, but it certainly improves the looks of the blade well.

sorry about the double post

Try a waterpik if you have one. There are so many different things that can cause lazy snap, gunk in the pivot among them. You might be able to determine what the problem is by partially opening the blade and observing what happens at the interface of the spring and the blade’s tang. If working properly, opening the blade should depress the spring such that it protrudes slightly below the liners. If the spring does not move, or only moves very slightly, then the interface has worn down (probably due to lack of lubrication). Either the end of the tang, the spring, or both, have lost enough metal to make that mechanism not function properly so the spring no longer works.

Another possibility is the bolsters squeezing too tightly on the blade and thus inhibiting it from freely moving. Not likely on an old knife, but nonetheless possible. It gets more complicated from there so if those mentioned aren’t it you may need a pro to address it. JMO

Ken

Thank you all for the good info, I appreciate it. I think I'll try to investigate further before using the cleaner. My gut tells me that the cleaner won't do any damage to the bone but maybe better safe than sorry for now. Wish I could get this pic to attach just for clarity but oh well. Thank you all again for the help!