Some help with a Gerber Armbar mod

tommywp · **on:** November 02, 2020, 03:06:44 AM

What’s up folks. Hope everyone is well and keeping their heads straight. I’m a big fan of including a tap hammer in my EDC toolset. I’ve hesitated on picking up an Armbar, mainly because of the weak back spring (which is as bad as advertised) but finally gave in and picked one up to pair with a small plier tool (eventually the Style PS, but a Dime for now). But both plier tools have scissors, and I don’t like tool redundancy, and I like saws, and I definitely don’t like the Armbar scissors, so I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon trying to swap in a saw.

And I think I was pretty successfully using a Dremmel to reshape the tang, slightly increase the pivot hole, and grind a nail nub in to a saw from a cheap Brookstone pruner MT that I bought (and quickly broke) a few years back. The Armbar tools have large tangs, so it was a great surprise to see that I had a spare part with enough metal to work with (my SAK and the Leatherman parts didn’t have enough meat). Seems like the saw fits pretty well and locks up as good as the standard tools, which isn’t very good given how weak the back spring is. There is definitely a risk of the saw blade folding down on your fingers while in use

but that’s more because of the Armbar itself then the mod...did I mention how weak the back spring is. That being said, the modded Armbar/Style PS combo will by far be the lightest and smallest way to achieve the knife/hammer/screw driver/saw/awl/ pry/plier/scissor/skinny driver combo that I aim for in all my carries. So I figured I’d give it a shot.

I think this is ultimately going to be a nice light duty tool combo to add to the rotation. But I can’t claim victory just yet! I’m having a lot of trouble getting the pivot screw tight and all the tools are still way too floppy. So my friends, a plea for assistance:

- what can I use to fully tighten the pivot screw? In an old post, I learned that it might be the same screw as the Gerber MP600 and 400 but I don’t know this for sure. I tried a bunch of things to loosen the pivot screw when I was removing the scissors and was most successful with a pair of large Lineman’s Pliers and the SAK pliers. But neither is working to adequately tighten it back up. Any guidance would be much appreciated.
- also, I lost track of whether the washer goes between the blade and the inside of the tool, or the blade and the outside of the tool. If someone with an Armbar could take a look and let me know it would be much appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

SirVicaLot · **Reply #1 on:** November 02, 2020, 03:18:23 AM

Interesting mod

Can‘t help you with the washer, as I returned my Armbar.

For all my Gerber mods i used the Knipex Cobra to loosen and tighten the pivot screws. It fits right in the notches and makes them easy to turn. Make sure you clean the threads of the screw and bolt of any leftover loctite before you reassemble it.

On the Gerber 400s and 600s the screws don‘t need to be very tight to stop the tools from wobbling (hence the use of loctite).Compare the tang thickness of the tools you removed with the ones you added. They need to be the same thickness. If the new ones are thinner you need to add washers to your setup.

Hope this helps

tommywp · **Reply #2 on:** November 03, 2020, 01:44:24 PM

Thanks SirVic. Good to know you just use pliers and nothing special...makes me less anxious about having a go at it. Which I did last night, but still haven’t gotten things tight enough. Not quite sure what I did wrong. Not giving up yet, but it ain’t looking good.