Re: First mod - mini Farmer with scissors

[nuphoria]

I hope you don't mind Aris, but the rest of the mods and I felt there was some excellent info on page 2 and 3 of your thread so we decided to make it a 'sticky'.

I'm glad you did - definitely worthy

[Rahmed]

  have no words 

[cerbera147]

Excellent 

Not just a run of the mill 'Farmer with Scissors' but a Mini Farmer with Scissors 

I can only imagine the disaster if I tried that 

[Tabasco]

Great pics and post. I say make this thread a "stickey". 

[harryf3]

So let’s try to make our lives easier.

I found this excellent drawing. Let’s explain it.



We’ve arleady formed a round head on the one side of the pin with the ball peen hammer and a vice like here:



And we go back to the drawing above and imagine we are working on a SAK.

figure 1
We assemble our  SAK

figure 2
Skip this step

figure 3
We cut the pin to the right size, say 1mm exposed

figure 4
We hit the pin vertically with the flat side of the hammer and we start creating the head.
But BEFORE we start hitting we place the already formed head on a bucking surface. This surface has a hole similar in shape with the head. If our working surface is flat then the strokes will flaten the head.

figure 5
We turn the hammer around and we hit with the ball side at an angle. This will create a better head which is round but not perfect yet.
As you see the new head doesn’t touch the scales of the SAK yet.
If we continue like this we may hit the scales with the hammer.

figure 6
We hit the rivet with our domed rivet tool. This will make the round head perfectly round and will drive it closer to the scales.


Here a similar drawing:



And a very nice animation:

http://www.technologystudent.com/joints/rivet4.htm


All those tools cost next to nothing.

I tried this method yesterday and I made an almost perfect solid rivet without scratching the scales at all.
I’ll try to post a pic later.

[harryf3]

Here is the new sample rivet made with this method.

Pics show both sides and in various angles.
The new one is obviously the one in the clear area and not the blue painted.

For even better pin-job we need a professional rivet squeezer.

And here I stop before this thread is getting boring.

[MultiMat]

That last rivet looks very good mate .

harry are you going to do any more Alox mods 
I am keen to see more 

[harryf3]

I've arleady restored an old well used 84mm Victoria with 3 layers and all I need is to find a red worn cadet to serve as a scales-donor. Or I'll just use silver scales.
Meanwhile I'm preparing a short review with pics but it is incomplete.

[MultiMat]

Looking forward to it mate 

[harryf3]

So I was at my sister’s the other day and she asked me to do a lot o repairs.
Plugs, wardrobe doors, children’s toys etc.
There was an excessive use of the mini farmer and this proved that the tool selection was good.
Needless to say that the knife stayed there. I’m sure it will serve them for years.


So I made me another one. The second knife of the same project needs no thinking.
This is an improved version.
The bottle opener has a different backspring that offers half "lock"/stop, meaning it stays "locked"/stoped when half open.
The awl is narrower, has a better angle and it’s sharper.
The riveting is better.
For some reason the blades/tools have a better action, similar to factory SAKs.

[tattoosteve99]

Is there any way to make this a sticky. Its very good info.

[Gareth]

Is there any way to make this a sticky. Its very good info.

Agreed.  What I've done though is merge it with the mini Farmer thread, that way we don't have too many sticky threads at the top of the page.

[Neil]

This must have taken you a long time to do all these pictures, thank you 

I like your take on repair with the bushing.

But what if we drilled wrong our beloved, expensive and discontinued blue farmer?

And there, in a nutshell, is why I only do silver coloured alox mods

[harryf3]

This is the third and I hope the last knife of the “mini Farmer with scissors” project.   

The original plan was to make something different that’s why I tried several tool combinations, shown in the other thread.

But no matter how tempting some SAKs are, I always end up making the same knife.

Experience says that I regularly use all those tools so there isn’t a single tool I can do without. Oh well.

So I tried to further improve it so I used the spacers from Cadets (the 3 Cadets of that thread) which are very thin (half the width of the regular aluminium spacers) and the bottle opener from an old Victoria which has a scrapper.

Last but not least it had to be red. New or worn doesn’t really matter.

The new version is 1,2 mm thinner. Actually it’s 9% thinner. This doesn’t sound much but it’s quite noticeable.

















Together with the second version. The Cadet spacers are not only thinner. They look much better as well.












Together with the regular 93mm Farmer. Almost same width but the mini has an extra layer, the scissors layer.

Also it’s shorter and lighter and carries better in the pocket. It’s a much better knife for urban use/edc.








And together with the Artisan.



The Artisan is of course much thicker




So after three versions of the mini Farmer with scissors I can say that NOW I am happy and satisfied. At last!

[J-sews]

Outstanding work there Harryf3!!


Boy, there sure is a lot of great info in this thread

[harryf3]

And another two shots together with the Artisan. See the difference in the liners.





Both are 4 layer 84mm SAKs and have very similar configuration. Actually I tried to copy the Artisan and make an alox one and at the same time make it similar to the regular 93mm Farmer.

The custom alox in way thinner and this is where alox scales shine, let alone the beauty. The beauty is of course something subjective.

Of course the Artisan has also the philips and awl on the back and also has a small blade.
The mini Farmer has the awl in the blade position and that’s a plus.
But overall the Artisan is a better knife.

[Neil]

Nicely done... again

[nuphoria]

Agreed.... very nice

[Frankctz]

Very good information, I will start planning my first SAk modification..
Thanks..

[Ashley]

Awesome!

Sent from Ash forum mobile

[tattoosteve99]

Haven't seen harryf3 in awhile. Nice mods. Wish he would come back.

[WiSAKfan]

Hand rivet tools

Rivet squeezer

(Image removed from quote.)

This is the most advanced and precise tool.

It is used in aircraft industry.

The tool together with the dies may cost $150-200 or more.
If we are modding SAKs on a regular basis then this is maybe a good investment.

If you are like me and just want to make your dream SAK, then make another 2 or 3 for your buddies and then quit, that tool is probably not an option.


U-clamp squeezer

(Image removed from quote.)

This is usually a custom made press/squeezer made from a U-clamp.
The end of the screws must have a proper concave hole to form the head of the rivet.
This hole is easily made with a round drill.


Rivet punches

(Image removed from quote.)

Like the ones I’ve made with a lathe.
If we adapt them to some kind of custom made press or guide for hammering then this tool is excellent.
Just hitting with the hammer is dangerous and it will eventualy hurt the scales.


All rivet tools require that the excess rod which will form the head of the rivet has the right size.
If it’s too short the die will not form a complete head and will eventually hit the scales of the knife.
If it’s too long we’ll have a metal “flow” outside of the die or the pin will bend.



Ball peen hammer

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

The well known basic tool for making a round head rivet.
Widely discussed in the forum.



Screw posts

(Image removed from quote.)

(Image removed from quote.)

I’ve searched the world to find the proper size for my mini-Farmer project but couldn’t find 2.2 mm screw posts.

The thinnest I found was 5mm brass screw posts and solid brass extensions



This was my second and possibly the last contribution to the mod squad as this is all the knowledge I have about modding a SAK so far.
I cannot see how we can make our custom alox SAK better.
The rest is experience and experimenting.

Once again I hope you found it useful.

all the best
Aris, Greece

did anyone here every try making a homemade presser out of a clamp as pictured?

thank you, I bought one, now i need to find it lol maybe i'll start looking at it while my desk is full of sak parts

[gurdakknives]

thanks for all the tips

[kosmo]

 

[Syph007]

thank you, I bought one, now i need to find it lol maybe i'll start looking at it while my desk is full of sak parts

Those type of rivet presses only work for thin rivets like aircraft skins.  If you tried to rivet a SAK like that it would cause the center area of the pin to bulge and make all the tools very hard to rotate and/or bend the pin depending on length. 

The way you would want to build a power riveter would be to start with something like an impact drill and make a custom head for that to shape the head.  It would need to be in a fixed bracket and have a matching bottom cut.  Short sudden impacts will deform the surface of the metal pin and not transfer the forces down the body of the rivet causing the issues I raised above.

[tattoosteve99]

I priced a automatic rivet machine. When they sent back the quote at 10k plus I kindly refused.

[stoneshank]

This is all very very interessting, sadly all i see is "please enable third party hosting" on all the photobucket pictures though, sadly. Is there a way to see these pictures without paying for their membership?

[hiraethus]

It’s not you, it’s photobucket. They started charging extortionate amounts for image hosting earlier this year and broke the internet.

[George S]

To echo: thanks for a superb write-up.

I particularly like the outlines on paper of where everything goes; I wish I'd done that before taking apart four SAKs, especially for the liners!

Excellent work.