Play on Folder

[hog]

Good morning Folks.
A quickie before I go to work.
Does anyone know how to fix up and downward play on a folder. It is a 'Buck' look alike from India, quite a substantial knife I rescued and would be great except this play.
Many thanks
Mark.

 

[Corso]

I presume it s a lock knife?

If it were a Buck you could send it to them for free aftercare but since its a cheap clone - there's not a lot you can do

 

[C_Claycomb]

Up and down play is the result of poor machining / tolerances and is very hard to fix long term. How you could try will depend on what lock mechanism the knife has. Buck make a lot of knives, some are back locks, some are frame locks and some are liner locks, and you don't say which one the Indians copied.

Play comes from clearance. For instance on a liner lock, the liner moves full across before the blade hits the stop pin. On a back lock the underside of the lock engages the blade tang, but the end of the lock bar doesn't quite reach the blade. If you were able to introduce material that would fill that tiny gap, something hard and durable, that would bond to the steel, you could take out the play. Best bet might be JB Weld, and a tiny file to work it down, but I doubt that it would stay "fixed" for long.

 

[sunndog]

Betcha it's a 110 clone and not a lot to be done, or is worth doing

 

[hog]

Yes it is a 110 type lock.

 

[Dave Budd]

the only simple enough to be economical thought I have would be to glue a shim of steel (such as a knackered feeler gauge blade or food can) into the vertical/left hand (if viewed with cutting edge down and point to your left) section of the groove that the locking tooth engages in on the blade. It would effectively take up the slack that is the normal cause of a knife being loose in that direction if it is a back lock, but the shim could fall out unless soldered in place and will likely compress with time too.

 

[hog]

Thanks for all the input.
At the end of the day it is probably not worth the hassel to try and fix this knife and will just use it till it is useless, then get a propper one.

 

[brancho]

Seems like a reason to buy a decent knife.