I'll add
commentary and explanation later
Hey all,
Wenger is coming to an end, I believe it's
being bought up by Victorinox, it's older, bigger brother. I don't know what
this will mean for the Wenger designs, but should it mean an end to the more
"hit and miss" attempts at innovation, I'll miss it. Folks seem to
find the fit and finish of Wengers less...well less, but I've never been
disappointed in it, and frankly I kind of like that they always tried to push
things, often too far :)
Anyway, this is a Wenger 51, it's big and beefy
and has a nice blade shape, it also has a liner lock on the main blade that you
disengage...wait for it...by pushing on the Wenger shield! awesome, hun? Well i
thought so.
I was at the SMKW a few weeks ago and
because of the... "merger"? ...they were selling off the Wengers at
50% off, it's not often I can afford a good knife or SAK in retail store
anymore, but I do like to do my part of retail stores and snap at the chance to
take part...so I did.
I had seen SAK mods and re-handles before
and thought it might be "fun" to try it, that's how it always starts.
Needless to say there were complications. Still it ended up with something I'm
happy with, to end the suspense here it is:
It has some faults, but none that are life
threatening, and the lock still works so overall, yeah, I'm happy I tried it.
Step by step
Step one:
The first step was to get the darn
original scales off, something I managed only stabbing myself with a fine tip
screw driver twice!
I found it easiest to work the edges at
the top
One done!
Two! And still alive, yay.
Step two
Form there I figured it'd be roughly like making the scales for a fixed blade knife....it's not, really, although it's got some common enough traits I was able to get far enough into it before I found out what I should have done.
So, I traced out some rough scales on some
African Maroko I'd been wanting to use
Made some notations of where the essential
points where, and which was left and right
Got to cutting with the trusty coping saw
Drilled through the original scales for
the pin holes (advice I found on a similar how to on britishblades.com but that
was for a regular red scales SAK)
Sanded them down on
80 grit sanding disks
Note: the holes, and this
is important for later, only have to go a little way into
the scales. The plastic ones essentially are tooled to
a point where can accept the [pins on the knife
into them, essentially they "plug" into
these holes. Since we’re not going to be able
to produce the same effect or accuracy of tooling you
need them just a little bigger than the actual pins. As only as they fit
in and the scale a can rest flat against the knife, then you’re in,
we're going to epoxy!
Step 3
I cut out the shield hole by drilling with the biggest bit I had (1/4) in the center of where it needed to be then I pencil filed (I call them pencil files because we used to use them in school to make decorate pencils instead of, you know, listening in class) the hole out the rest of the way.
Step 4
Thinning the scales. It was a lot of work to thin them down to and past the original plastic ones (I wanted it a little less chunky)
What's more I had failed to consider
exactly how much wood I would've to remove during step 3, and ended up
"uncovering" the end of several of the pin holes I'd drilled. I don't
know I could have done the pin holes any shallower, and I didn't want the
scales any fatter in the end this is just a risk I think you have to take.
However you should be aware of it because
the wood around the shield is about to get very thin as well, it required
delicate and constant attention to not break through...too badly anyway.
Step 5
This is where things got interesting...I realized there was more to the plastic scales being hollow then just good economics. That's right, the liner lock system needs some room to move.
After some soul searching in which I
seriously pondered why, exactly, I put myself and perfect good knife through
this kind of thing, I decided I would sand as best i could a rough hole and try
to file my way out the mess (since my files aren't bendy, that was difficult.)
But I eventually, and by some miracle,
managed to get it to where it would work pretty well.
Step 6
Epoxy and clamp that fella. I actually used Loctite on this one, gorilla glue will expand, not something you want for this kinda job, and more complex epoxy's seemed needless for the task.
Make sure to check that the scales lay
flat on the knife before you star, if not go back to sanding till they do, makes
it a lot simpler, and limits gaps or bending the knife liners, which can affect
the function.
Ta dar! Here we see it in the light and
with different angles.
As you can see I exposed two pins on this
side...eeek! but it almost looks intentional. So I tell people it was.
On a side note this wood
came out awesome!
All tools work. Also the reshaping of the
screwdriver access area was intentional, I had curved it around like the
original scale but losing that made the profile slimmer the tool easier to get
to, and gave me a lot less headaches because it's a very thin a lonely piece of
scale at the back end that was always threatening to catch on something and
fall off.
If I'd made the wood any thinner here it
would be dangers to use the shield to depress the liner lock, thankfully it
work out and the shield can be pressed before the wood got paper thin. As this
was one of the coolest ideas Wenger tried (in my opinion) I'm very happy about
that.
It didn't require very many tools, none
specialized, and was fun, despite my tendency to complain.
Anyway, thanks for looking again, if you
did, and if you didn't then how are we talking exactly? Hoped you liked
something in it
As always this is not a lesson in shop
safety I assume that anyone trying this knows the basics to advanced tool and
shop safety. For my money you should have to wear eye protection and gloves
just to read a post like this, let alone try it, but no one at the health and
safety office will answer my letters :(
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