2010 Shot - Building your own SAK

[J-sews]

At the Victorinox booth we learned that making a Swiss Army Knife is not nearly as difficult as it may seem. (Of course it helps when you have access to a several-thousand-dollar SAK making machine and the associated tooling!)





To begin with, pick out three of the bigger brass pins and one of the smaller ones and slip them into their respective brass bushings.





Be careful not to drop the bushings, as they are quite small and can be a real devil to fish out from underneath the counter!





Then install the brass pivot pins into the little jig holes in SAK making machine.





Pulling the lever forward causes the machine to clamp each pin/bushing combo like a vise, holding them rigidly so the liners and blades can be added.





Next install the bottom liner, the first backspring, then the can opener, bottle opener, and awl.





At this point your SAK should look like this:





Clamping down with the top lever of the SAK machine holds everything in place while you use the side lever to preload the backspring.





Now repeat the assembly for the second layer, installing the middle liner, both knives, other backspring, and corkscrew. Try to avoid grabbing extra components from the bins and accidentally putting them in your pockets while doing this.





When this step is complete, add the top liner.





Carefully remove your knife and place it on the peening fixture. Snip the extra length off each of the brass pivot pins.





Now use the spring loaded forming punch to peen the tops of the pins. Go easy here! Not enough peen and your blades will have "play" in them, too much peen and they won't fold smoothly. Test each blade, do additional peening as necessary.





Lastly, use a padded vise to clamp the scales into place, then install toothpick, tweezer, and key ring.





Congratulations! See, that wasn't so hard now was it?






Now please be sure to tune in next week when we begin our two-part series: Building your own Victorinox Camp Trailer.

[Gareth]

That really would make my hobby so much easier.   Nice pics Bob.

[1jump2many]

OK........now you've gone and officially made me jealous!      Did they allow you to add whatever tools you wanted or was it one particular knife?  You should have told the Vic guy to look over there and then picked up the machine and ran out the door.      I would love to make my own knife with Alox scales.  Great pictures.   

[Sazabi]

I like the Road Spartan, but answer this:  why no Passenger, Scientist, Yeoman, or some other funky combination? 

OK........now you've gone and officially made me jealous!      Did they allow you to add whatever tools you wanted or was it one particular knife?  You should have told the Vic guy to look over there and then picked up the machine and ran out the door.      I would love to make my own knife with Alox scales.  Great pictures.   

Just so long as he brought the machines to my door and left them here.

[edap617]

Thanks Bob and Def.

Very interesting and splendid pics.

[1jump2many]

I like the Road Spartan, but answer this:  why no Passenger, Scientist, Yeoman, or some other funky combination? 

OK........now you've gone and officially made me jealous!      Did they allow you to add whatever tools you wanted or was it one particular knife?  You should have told the Vic guy to look over there and then picked up the machine and ran out the door.      I would love to make my own knife with Alox scales.  Great pictures.   

Just so long as he brought the machines to my door and left them here.

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

[Sazabi]

I like the Road Spartan, but answer this:  why no Passenger, Scientist, Yeoman, or some other funky combination? 

OK........now you've gone and officially made me jealous!      Did they allow you to add whatever tools you wanted or was it one particular knife?  You should have told the Vic guy to look over there and then picked up the machine and ran out the door.      I would love to make my own knife with Alox scales.  Great pictures.   

Just so long as he brought the machines to my door and left them here.

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

Disney World?  No.  Godiva or other boutique chocolate store?  Definitely... can't just have a little bit of one or the other... you want the works... including the old discontinued models... alox, too. >.>

[Chako]

Now that looks like fun. 

[Grant Lamontagne]

OK........now you've gone and officially made me jealous!      Did they allow you to add whatever tools you wanted or was it one particular knife?  You should have told the Vic guy to look over there and then picked up the machine and ran out the door.      I would love to make my own knife with Alox scales.  Great pictures.   

I have been trying to get one since I first saw it last year! 

It's a Spartan, just like last year's model:

http://sosakonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=422&Itemid=35

Def

[prime77]

That is really cool. Nice pics too Bob.

[ICanFixThat]

Man I should have planned to go to SHOT just for that.

Thanks for the great Photos!

[WhichDawg]

very nice, Bob your pictures make Grant look so young! must be the angles

luv that machine, I don't wanna keep it, just borrow it a few times

[nuphoria]

How exciting 

I would love one of those handy machines, but it's still fun doing it the hard way 


As for Airstreams, they are just the sexiest trailers money can buy 

[Whoey]

would it actually cost several thousand dollars to build such a machine? it seems like a pretty straightforward press... I'm sure if you iron out the details it could be done in a machine shop for less... maybe not perfect, but enough for hobby modders?

[yud]

I would just like to have store that you could go to building your own SAK, give us that vic

[Neil]

Fantastic pics 

That forming punch gives me a few ideas

[BIG-TARGET]

It's like handling the ring of the pope!!

[Ben X]

Did you mention you know a "couple of guys" who, uh, do something "kinda like that" for a hobby? Or are all the Vic figures pretty up tight about the idea of modding?

[Magnus]

Anyone else think it would be a great marketing opportunity to have these in Vic shops, custom SAKs made while you wait. 

[Gareth]

Anyone else think it would be a great marketing opportunity to have these in Vic shops, custom SAKs made while you wait. 

Are you trying to put me out of business!?

Na, I think you're right actually.  Perhaps not in every store but as a feature in their flagships it sounds excellent.

[bren10man]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

[1jump2many]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

What type of modifications did the Colt employees make?  Grips, finish?  That would be nice.  I doubt it takes very long to make an SAK with all the factory equipment.  Imagine, they could make any cellidor model in Alox and vice versa, not to mention anything they could dream up.  A blue Alox Explorer, etc.   

[yud]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

What type of modifications did the Colt employees make?  Grips, finish?  That would be nice.  I doubt it takes very long to make an SAK with all the factory equipment.  Imagine, they could make any cellidor model in Alox and vice versa, not to mention anything they could dream up.  A blue Alox Explorer, etc.   

have you ever done a mod?

[Craig]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.  

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

What type of modifications did the Colt employees make?  Grips, finish?  That would be nice.  I doubt it takes very long to make an SAK with all the factory equipment.  Imagine, they could make any cellidor model in Alox and vice versa, not to mention anything they could dream up.  A blue Alox Explorer, etc.  

Reminds me of this:

[Woz]

I want to make one too! Hope Victorinox has the same stand at IWA in March!

[1jump2many]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

What type of modifications did the Colt employees make?  Grips, finish?  That would be nice.  I doubt it takes very long to make an SAK with all the factory equipment.  Imagine, they could make any cellidor model in Alox and vice versa, not to mention anything they could dream up.  A blue Alox Explorer, etc.   

have you ever done a mod?

No.  I'm envisioning some kind of factory made hybrid. 

[AHB]

Anyone else think it would be a great marketing opportunity to have these in Vic shops, custom SAKs made while you wait. 

"Build-A-Bear" for Knife Nuts.. 

[Ben X]

These type of threads make me wonder what some of the employees make when or if they get a chance.  Obviously the parts have to be around, but I know Ibach has a lot of older parts.  It would be like our Disney World.   

yep...just like in the good ole days when Colt employees would make "lunch box special" M1911A1 .45's.

What type of modifications did the Colt employees make?  Grips, finish?  That would be nice.  I doubt it takes very long to make an SAK with all the factory equipment.  Imagine, they could make any cellidor model in Alox and vice versa, not to mention anything they could dream up.  A blue Alox Explorer, etc.   

have you ever done a mod?

LOL nice ANd I also thought of that Johnny Cash song- if I remember right the car looks ridiculous by the end, it's composed of parts from different generations so they don't really fit together. But-  the sheer ignorance of saying he got the transmission out in his lunchbox 

[Grant Lamontagne]

What about a blue ALOX "Huntsman" with a bail? 



http://www.sosakonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=297&Itemid=35

Def

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Still want that, especially if you replace the scissors with a metal file