PowerAssist Complete Disassembly

[pruitthall]

Has anyone completely disassembled the PowerAssist yet?  i.e. the assisted folder section?  Genetically chicken if I don't see photos!

Thanks

[Zack]

Wouldn't reccommend it as I believe it voids the warranty, and looks very complex.

[DaveK]

Must .... resist..... 

[cliosguy]

he he he

[DaveK]

OK - I had a good look at doing this and decided against it. There's too much going on in there, and of course - springs, so it could be tricky.

I might try it in daylight sometime, when I've got plenty of time to persevere with putting it back together again!

Whilst looking at it though, I was reminded of two really irritating problems I have with mine.

Firstly, the blade pivots / bolts seem to work themselves loose very quickly, particularly on the PE blade. I keep tightening them up, but eventually (even after applying loctite to the screw thread) they'll work loose again. The horizontal and vertical play that leaves the blade with is actually enough to make me wary of using it with any force. Tightening it enough to dispense with the play prevents the AO from working properly too. I'm not sure if this is unique to my tool, but it's not good really.

The second irritation is the way the V-Cutter locks up with the can opener when you open them. If I was depending on this tool and became casual in opening / closing the tools, eventually I'd end up cut!

Has anyone else seen these problems, or do I have a lemon?

[MultiMat]

Dave I have no problems with blade play/pivot looseness.
I have the same issue with my V-Cutter catching on the can opener , a bit amateurish by SOG , IMHO Vic & Leatherman would not put out a MT that did that. A washer between the V-Cutter & can opener might fix it  .

I Like my PowerAssist but had hoped I would love it  , my hands just are not big enough to use the pliers comfortably  . The ability too cut wire is truly impressive though.

[DaveK]

Cheers for that Mat. I might have a closer look.

[MattBernier]

I'd love to see someone take a crack at this, for two reasons: One, I'd like to be able to service the tool should I get grit in it or somehow get salsmurfer in it. Two, I'd like to know what the mechanism is like if you remove the spring that pushes it open, but not the closing spring. I'd prefer a one-hand open blade without the assist, and if I could modify it like that, I wouldn't even mind voiding the warranty to do it.

[DaveK]

My advice would be - don't go there!



There's a rivet that holds the plastic piece (which is pretty important it seems) in place. The only way past here that I can see is by breaking stuff.



Wish me luck getting this thing back together! 

[MattBernier]

Interesting. So, I take it the springs are totally inaccessible to you? It's nice to see you could at least remove and clean the blades and the space around them, which is honestly what I'd be most worried about. I guess we'll see how reassembley turns out for you.

[Smitty44]

I don't know how to fix it,but I would like to welcome Pruitthall,and MattBernier to the forums.
  &

[DaveK]

I don't know how to fix it,but I would like to welcome Pruitthall,and MattBernier to the forums.
  &

As would I - welcome guys  

It appears that nothing's sealed at all! I assume that it was the point that the springs attached to the blades that held them in place, and I could see the spring underneath. The plastic piece seems to be just a shaped piece of plastic, rather than a casing.

[MattBernier]

Howdy! Thanks for the welcome!

I'm not sure what you mean about the plastic not being a casing- it seems like the locking mechanism must pass up under it, and it also seems like the springs are contained within it- or not? You can see it wayyyyy better than I can, obviously.

So, to disassemble it to this point, did you have to disentangle the blade from the springs after removing the rivet? And if so, is your task now basically to re-entangle it correctly?

[DaveK]

It's a bit difficult to describe, but I'll have a go!

The plastic doesn't appear to be a casing, more a curved shaped "spacer" drilled for the bolt and spring to pass through.

When I removed the bolt, the blades both jumped out as you can see in the first pic. They wouldn't move any further though (i.e. I couldn't remove them from the position you see) presumably because each end of the coiled spring are attached to the blades (I could see the ends of the coil protruding out from under the blade tangs at either side of the plastic). I think that if the permanent rivet (that you can see in the second pic) was removed, the whole plastic, spring and blades would fall out - still attached to each other. I don't think there's any sophisticated mechanism in the spring loading, just a coil passed through the plastic piece. In fact, it's a bit crude.

Does that explain it any better - it's a bit tricky to describe....

[MattBernier]

I understand it better, yet I do not fully understand. Funny, that.

But! I get your basic point, and that any attempt at disassembley for self-maintainance is basically futile.

If only the powerlock had a decent blade that faced the right way...

[jzmtl]

It's probably the same as their knife mechanism, if you haven't seen it before you can see the inside here:

[MattBernier]

Dude, that makes everything DaveK said make perfect sense now. In fact, I think I perfectly understand how the mechanism in the powerassist is assembled- I bet the plastic piece looks like the inside of that trident on both sides, with mirror mechanisms recessed into the plastic.

If that rivet in the powerassist handle were instead a screw, you could unscrew it and the blades and assist mechanism would come out in one piece, which is also probably how they install it for riveting.

(Looks at rivet and wishes it were a screw)

[MattBernier]

Now, it seems to me that if you were to take, say, a paperclip, and push the spring protrusion down and out of the blade, you could slide the blade out, and then you could remove the spring, and then reinsert the blade, making the knife a locking manual knife, if you didn't want this to be an assisted opening knife for some reason. (I'm still on the fence about the assisted opening, which is why I'm pursuing this- I'd be perfectly happy with a one hand opening manual.)

But it also looks like if it gets dirty in there, you're screwed with that rivet in there. (looks at it more and wishes it were a screw.)

[pruitthall]

Wow, thanks for the activity on this one.  Basically, my genetically chicken about disassembly on this one was well founded!

[DaveK]

Good find jzmtl - that's pretty much what I think was going on inside the Powerassist. I couldn't tell exactly, but I suspect that each end of the spring coil attaches to a blade, and the purpose of the plastic spacer is to hold that spring around the bolt. Simple, but effective.

I wasn't able to see the pin-hole where the spring attaches to either blade though, and didn't want to pull the blades away from the handle for fear of stretching the coil.

A picture speaks a thousand words as they say.