Sunday, February 3, 2013

How to strip a 91mm Victorinox

A few days ago I bought a lot (15pcs) of old "retired" 91mm models going from a Spartan to a Handyman. I wanted to start a spare parts kit and it's always easy to have some spare parts at hand. I tought it would be the perfect time to make some pictures to show you how to disassemble a 91mm knife without destroying the tools, spacers or scales. It takes a bit of practice, but once you've done a few, it goes faster and faster. I want to build a custom 91mm but still need to buy the rivets. Disassembling gives you the chance to see how effective, yet simple this design actually is. Good luck! Questions? Try the reply feature below or my mail address jeroen_thys@telenet.be

Here's the lucky bastard! Take out the tweezers and toothpick and leave it a few hours in a small bowl with soap and water. Take out of the water, and start prying the damn thing...


You can use another knife or something thin enough to get between the narrow space next to the scales. If you wiggle it enough you'll hear a "pop" and the scale comes off fairly easy.



The rivets now become visible and these are the ones you're gonna cut off afterwards. 


Once both scales are removed, you need to clamp the knife, preferably in a vice to make a clean cut on the rivets.


I use a Dremel with a small cutting blade attached. This works very accurate and leaves nearly no damage on the outer spacer.


Try to cut sideways. Pretend to make a flathead screw and when you reach the spacer, the rivet head pops of.


Clean the remaining rivet and make sure the spacer comes loose easy... Repeat this with the other two large rivets. The smaller rivet in the middle needs a bit of grinding till you reach the spacer. This one doesn't have the small ring on top.


Now, try to make the same move you did with the scales. The outer spacer needs to come loose now and the first tools show up.



The first tool to disassemble is the corkscrew. After the corkscrew, the backspring will come loose and the two blades will follow instantly.


Right now, you'll have a piece of the rivets sticking out. Just enough to hit it with a hammer. Use something with a hole in it,under the knife, to protect the other spacer when you hit the knife. I use a watch-tool.


Use a plier to pull out the rivets, one by one. Do this without damaging the spacers.


Et voila.... The knife falls apart!


This is the result after 15 times this tutorial... ;)




6 comments:

  1. Do you have a source for replacement scales? I need to replace a set.

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  2. Try Swissbianco on Ebay. They sell the scales in various colors...

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  3. Man you know a lot about SAKs!, have you replaced a blade?

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    1. Hi Selwins...

      I gather usefull information on the net and try these methods myself. I don't want to take credit for someone else's work, but thanks anyway! ;) Replacing a blade is very easy, but be warned... If you want to keep the knife in its original state, i'd recommend center-drilling the rivets and reusing them afterwards. My method is only usefull if you want to make a mod with screws instead of rivets... I make my own mods from used, trashed Vics, so to answer your question... I did replace a few blades... If you drill with a 2mm drill in the center of the rivets, the rings should come loose and you could reuse them on new brass pins. There's a seller on edc-source (http://www.edcsource.com/91mm-SAK-Pin-Set,name,115260,auction_id,auction_details) who sells small packages of brass pins for the 91mm models. I hope this helps... ;)

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  4. Another very helpful tutorial -- thanks very much, Jeroen!

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