Problem with a fairly new Gerber Highbrow knife

[mikekoz]

Hello everybody!   As the title suggests, this is about an issue with my Gerber Highbrow. I purchased this last year before the holidays, so it is pretty new, and has only been carried by me a few times. A few days ago while just playing with the knife, I noticed it would no longer flip open. It is an assisted opening knife and up until yesterday, worked great. Now it seems to get stuck when I use the thumb stud to open the blade. I can manually open it the rest of the way and it locks tight as a drum, but just will not auto open anymore! I tried using some Buck knife oil and WD40 in it, but that did not help at all. The knife is clean and I see no debris or rust in it. IT is in near mint condition. I was going to contact Gerber about it, but thought I would post the problem here first. I only paid about $30.00 for it, so it may not be worth paying to send it to Gerber. This model is fairly new, but have any of you used this or seen this problem before? I may take the knife apart and see what I can see, but I am sure my warranty will be gone after that! Here is a photo of the knife:




 Any ideas??? 
 

[cody6268]

I had a Kershaw Chive with this problem, and it was due to dirt in the part of the knife that held in the assisted opening spring. Took taking the entire thing apart to fix.

[Etherealicer]

Take it apart, remove the assist... and in the future, pull the lockbar and flick it open like the Axis-Lock-Clone this is.
Alternatively, take it apart an clean it.

[mikekoz]

   Thanks! If it is made anything like the last assisted opening knife I took apart, the spring will fly out of it never to be seen again, and it will just be a standard flipper anyhow!  I would not think it would be dirty, but if I decide to take it apart, I will find out!!

[Aloha]

All of my springs break eventually.  I have two kershaws that I've replaced springs on at least 3 Xs each.  NO more.  Just open like a manual and couldn't be happier. 

[mikekoz]

   Yesterday I kept spraying WD40 in it every several hours and then manually opening and closing the  blade trying to work out whatever was in the mechanism. I repeated this about 3-4 times and and now it opens again!  I think this weekend I am still going to open up this knife and remove the spring. 

[pfrsantos]

   Yesterday I kept spraying WD40 in it every several hours and then manually opening and closing the  blade trying to work out whatever was in the mechanism. I repeated this about 3-4 times and and now it opens again!  I think this weekend I am still going to open up this knife and remove the spring. 

I don't know if this would solve the problem, but maybe soak it in a bowl of warm water and soap for a while. Opening and closing it in there, to get rid of dirt and then take it out and dry it thoroughly, adding some oil at the end.

 

[mikekoz]

    I had a burst of energy and took out the spring. I could only figure out how to remove one of the scales, and I got tired and did not want to risk screwing the knife up for good. The spring is not the problem, and neither is dirt. The pivot on this knife is just too tight and unless there is a screw to adjust it under the other scale, I do not see a way to loosen it. Removing the spring did not fix this knife at all!   

[mikekoz]

 I think I have actually fixed this thing! I was able to get both scales off. It was actually easy and it is amazing what a good nights sleep does! Lo and behold, there was a pivot screw and it was just too tight. Once I loosened it a bit, it opened smooth as butta! I originally put it back together again without the spring, and it worked great, but needed a thumb stud. I just put the spring back on and it works better now than it did when I purchased it. Thanks everybody!   

[Aloha]

  Thats great to hear.