Looking for tips

[THWEET]

Hello, first post. I've been a lurker on here for a couple of years actually so I'm excited to be a member finally lol. Anyway, I just had a couple questions regarding modding. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and thought it was pretty straight forward. That was my first mistake. There are lots of little things to know. I really want a Vic Scientist but as I'm sure many people here are aware, they are discontinued and not the easiest to find. Even the cheaper ones I manage to find are around $150. So that lead me to trying to mod one into existence for myself. I bought a couple SAK's on eBay for this purpose. An old style Explorer with the fluted corkscrew and the magnifying lens in the grey housing. A bit later a Spartan, and a factory new Waiter. I have been trying to get it all together for the past few days and am having a bit of a hard time. It's all together now, but it's sloppy. The layer with the mag. lens/phillips locks up great and is nice and tight. The problems lie with the knife/combo tool layer. The outermost liner on that layer, where the scales attach, it's out of alignment. The combo tool likes to get hung up on it when I fold it back down. So I guess I should say that I tried to simply salvage the Explorer's pins and bushings and liners and reuse them to save time, material, etc. Should I simply drill them out and start over? And when peening the pins, should I start at the corkscrew pin and then to the 2.2mm pin, then to the other 2 pins? I guess I'm asking, what am I missing? Thanks for any help you can provide.

[comis]

Hello, first post. I've been a lurker on here for a couple of years actually so I'm excited to be a member finally lol. Anyway, I just had a couple questions regarding modding. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and thought it was pretty straight forward. That was my first mistake. There are lots of little things to know. I really want a Vic Scientist but as I'm sure many people here are aware, they are discontinued and not the easiest to find. Even the cheaper ones I manage to find are around $150. So that lead me to trying to mod one into existence for myself. I bought a couple SAK's on eBay for this purpose. An old style Explorer with the fluted corkscrew and the magnifying lens in the grey housing. A bit later a Spartan, and a factory new Waiter. I have been trying to get it all together for the past few days and am having a bit of a hard time. It's all together now, but it's sloppy. The layer with the mag. lens/phillips locks up great and is nice and tight. The problems lie with the knife/combo tool layer. The outermost liner on that layer, where the scales attach, it's out of alignment. The combo tool likes to get hung up on it when I fold it back down. So I guess I should say that I tried to simply salvage the Explorer's pins and bushings and liners and reuse them to save time, material, etc. Should I simply drill them out and start over? And when peening the pins, should I start at the corkscrew pin and then to the 2.2mm pin, then to the other 2 pins? I guess I'm asking, what am I missing? Thanks for any help you can provide.

Welcome to  !

From my modding experience and watching others, there could be a couple of reasons, here are two I could think of off top my head:

1) Unevenness of chassis when assembling the tools
When assembling the tools back onto the chassis, it may be a good idea to use a rubber hammer to lightly tap onto the liners and tools to make sure they are tightly stacked together.  Some may think it is ok to just rely on the peening at the end to put everything together, but the spring tension of each layers may or may not be the same, and that may affect whether peening can remove the slack evenly within each layers.
I have always used a jig to dissemble and assemble my SAKs, but I too would think without a jig, there's also a good chance the chassis/liner may not be completely flat and may introduce tweak into the body.

2) Tweaked chassis due to play or slack
Similar to previous problem, when peening everything all together, it's important to test every tool as you peen.  And I always peen each rivets/heads evenly(alternatively on all 8 pin heads), to reduce chance to introduce tweak into the body.

Hope this helps!

[Myron]

Welcome Thweet.  The Scientist is one of my favorite SAKs too -- fun choice for a build project.

Comis is right; check those two things for sure.  I would also suggest that by reusing your pins, you may have inadvertently used one with an slight bend in it, and that this is causing your layers to be out of alignment.  Probably best to start with fresh pin stock.

I can't over-emphasize Comis's point about using a jig.  More than any other trick or technique this will raise the quality of your final outcome.  The only other thing I'd say to try is smoothing all the surfaces and holes and pin ends before assembling. 

Good luck

Myron

[THWEET]

Alright I'll try that stuff. I was thinking too, since I don't have a vice or a workbench...or a workshop of any kind..that I could get a couple of those furniture clamps they make for things like cabinet handles. The little tiny ones to hold it all together during assembly. Thanks again for the help 

[comis]

Alright I'll try that stuff. I was thinking too, since I don't have a vice or a workbench...or a workshop of any kind..that I could get a couple of those furniture clamps they make for things like cabinet handles. The little tiny ones to hold it all together during assembly. Thanks again for the help 

I think that's a pretty cool idea to be resourceful and use the clamp to keep the chassis together, so parts won't fly apart during assembly, but I can't stress enough the importance of using a jig to keep the chassis flat and tight will keep everything flat and tight.

Here is a link to a previous writeup of mine, all you have to do is to find a piece of wood, roughly drill out a few holes corresponding to the rivets(once you take the scales off) and you'd have a 'disassembly' jig.  Once you'd take everything apart, use the blade liner as a template, draw on another piece of wood and accurately mark the rivet positions.  Drill those holes, then you'd have yourself a really functional assembly jig:

https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,82166.msg1969411.html#msg1969411

It is not impossible to dissemble or assemble without a jig, but it's just that much harder to keep the chassis really flat, while trying to pull the springs to put tools back.

[Max Stone]

All the best THWEET with your build. 

The clearance is quite tight with the combo tool and you need good alignment In that layer otherwise it will snag on the liner or clip the back of the main blade.

Things to check Include the liners. They must be completely flat. I use the granite surface of my kitchen counter to check. They’re easy to bend, and can then easily catch on the tools.

Also, when I first started, I tended to not have the layers all nicely tight together. I got side to side wobble on the tools, and this also causes the tools to be misaligned when closing and catching on things.

As suggested earlier, when reassembling, tap the layers down as you go, so they seat nice and tight. The same when you close everything up to peen. Check for tool wobble when you’re peening to ensure you’re closing it up tight enough. You want a tiny bit of wobble, just enough so the tools don’t bind, otherwise you lose the ‘snap’ when closing.

I use a small bench vice, and open the jaws so the pin can fit in the gap, so I can tap the assembly tight. I cover some of the peening basics in this thread here: https://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,84666.msg2122961.html#msg2122961

It does take a few goes to get things right. But within a few builds you’ll be at factory spec and your Scientist will be perfect! 

[kamakiri]

I guess I'm asking, what am I missing? Thanks for any help you can provide.

My apologies for the necro bump here, but I stumbled on this while looking for something else.

But for any other new modders, I believe the OP’s problem originates here:

An old style Explorer with the fluted corkscrew and the magnifying lens in the grey housing. A bit later a Spartan, and a factory new Waiter.

This is one example where selection of donors is pretty important, if not critical to a successful mod.

Even with this relatively simple 2-layer mod, a lot can go wrong with the parts selected from three knives of different eras and frame sizes.

Anyway, my guess is that parts from different knife layers were combined using ones that aren’t really compatible like 2mm tangs and 2.4mm liners or vice versa. Mixing that with a brand new 84mm combo tool isn’t gonna help matters.

Hope that helps someone reading up on doing their first mod.

P.S. And for what it’s worth, I don’t use an assembly jig. Wouldn’t help me one bit since I don’t pull the springs to assemble a layer.