A constant source of frustration for me, and a zillion other VSAK collectors and modders, is the scarcity of 84 mm models with scissors. I love to build Super Cadets, but it means finding a pair of the elusive scissors first. I bought a Baby Climber the other day and it went for less than it might have because it had a broken scissors spring (and it still cost 26 bucks)
As you no doubt know, the problem with 84 mm scissors isn't really single-leaf vs double-leaf (unless you're into originality). The real problem is that the eyelet on these scissors is smaller than the eyelet on the 91 mm scissors, for which size replacement springs are readily available. It seems that Victorinox must've fundamentally changed the way they were doing things because I have an early Executive with single-leaf spring and it uses the small eyelet, but then I have a 1996 Olympics Executive and its scissors have the large eyelet.
I think there are exactly three solutions to this problem, if you are bound and determined to use and maintain 84 mm scissors.
1. Modify a large eyelet spring to fit a small eyelet scissors.
2. Buy an 84 mm VSAK just to cannibalize its spring. This seems pointless since now you just have another pair of useless 84 mm scissors on your hands.
3. Modify the small eyelet on the 84 mm scissors to accept a large eyelet spring by drilling it out.
I wasted four large eyelet springs trying to make Solution 1 work. The problem is that compressing the large eyelet of the spring weakens it and if you mess with it too much, it breaks off. Four springs later, I gave up in frustration.
Since the knife I was interested in rejuvenating was a personal grail, a red Voyageur, I decided to steal the spring out of an 84 mm Golfer I had bought for parts. Since I knew that would work in the small eyelet Voyageur, and I have a couple other Golfers already, I decided this was a worthy trade. I also at the same time bought the Victorinox spring changing tool kit. This turns out to have been key. The scissors spring kit from Victorinox can be had for about 50 bucks and is totally worth it. If you don't have one, I highly recommend it.
The spring swap from the parts Golfer to the Voyageur was super easy, especially with the Victorinox tool kit. So with the Voyageur up and running again, I now decided to re-visit Solution 1 and see if I could modify a large eyelet spring in a more controlled way and get it to fit the Golfer's small eyelet scissors. Where I failed the first four times was in devising some controlled way to compress the loop at the end of the spring. I decided I needed a form, and I just happened to think about the wire stripper in a standard Victorinox can opener or combo tool. So I put the Golfer in the vise, and et voila! It was perfect. By gently but forcefully pushing the spring loop down into the wire stripper, the loop was compressed in a regular, even way. I then used some tiny pliers to roll it inward, and the finished loop looked very close to fitting.
I then used the Victorinox reamer tool to open up the small eyelet scissors a little, just on their top surface. A second later with the spring mounting tool, the modified spring was in and working perfectly.
I will experiment with drilling out a pair of scissors, Solution 3, and post my results here later.
Here are some pics of my process in case anyone else wants to try this, or maybe even improve on it.
1. Using the wire stripper to form the loop. I used a screw driver to force the large eyelet loop down into the wire stripper form. The SAK has to be held TIGHT in the vise. Obviously, you have to not care too much about the scales on the knife, since clamping it in a vise like this will trash them.
2. Using tiny pliers, I formed the spring loop a little bit more. The first pic shows how the loop looked right out of the wire stripper form. The second one shows it after one gentle inward squeeze with the tiny pliers.
3. Using the Victorinox reamer tool, I opened up the small eyelet of the subject scissors a little more. Unlike modern Victorinox scissors, these old 84 mm scissors do not have a wider aperture eyelet on one side, so you must do this yourself.
4. With the SAK secured in the Victorinox tool, use the smaller of the two spring mounting punches to drive the spring into the small eyelet scissors. Looks almost factory, no?
Here we see side-by-side the repaired Golfer (on the right, no tweezers) with an original Golfer (on the left). Looking good.
I hope this is helpful to others.
Best,
Myron
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