The Manix 2 LW is my FAVORITE Spyderco. I'll not get into why, as it's subjective, and everybody's different. But I'll say that the design is truly elegant in its simplicity, a blade, two handle halves, four lock parts, and fasteners. That's it. And it works great.
You know how there are guys who buy a new car, and immediately tear out the exhaust system, install bigger turbos, and reprogram everything? Or the guys who buy a new rifle, and before shooting it installs a new trigger group, adds fancy optics, and changes out the compensator? Well there are also guys who can't be happy until they take apart a knife and rebuild it in their own perceived image of perfect. Well that's me on all counts. Here is a little tale of busting apart my LW so I could make the blade drop better. Was it worth the effort? Probably not. But the idea was burning in my mind, and I could resist no longer. This isn't meant to be a how-to manual, it's merely documentation of what I did. Maybe folks will get ideas for this or other projects, or maybe some haven't seen the guts of a Manix 2 LW.
Disclaimer: Merely reading this is probably enough to void the warranties on all your Manixes, and maybe even a Native or two. Trying to replicate the following activities could result in turning a good knife into a worthless pile of parts. The wisest among us have already clicked the "back" button. It's probably best to join them.
My inspiration was from a couple guys over on that other knife forum. They converted their LW's from rivets to screws. For my own reasons, I didn't like that and chose to stay with rivets. The rivets I sourced were brass, which would have paired well with the burnt orange handle. But my fasteners needed to match a little better, so I plated them in zinc/cadmium, which I had on hand. My rivets are Part Number 96082A100 from McMaster-Carr.
After the plating was started, it was time to blow apart the knife. I was cautious because the rivets appeared to be stainless, and I hate working with stainless. It's hard to start with, and if you're not careful, it will work harden. The internal parts were also a concern, but I'd just have to cross that bridge when I came to it. I used a starter drill that I suspected was bigger than the rivets, with the intention of just going through the head, and then drifting the rivets out the rest of the way.
The rivets were not as hard to drill as I thought. But here's a thing about drilling rivets. After you go through the head, the rivet can spin in the hole, creating all sorts of mayhem. In this case, as you can see in the picture below, I allowed a rivet to spin, and it melted away and enlarged one of the holes in the left handle. It wasn't bigger than the new rivet heads, but it was sloppy work on my part. I should have backed up the other side of the rivets and been more careful. I gobbed some epoxy in there, just to fill up space.
Close examination of the parts revealed why my blade wasn't dropping to my satisfaction. Notice how the spring guide rod is at the limit of it's travel, but the movable button has another 3/32" until it reaches the end of its slot. I ended up grinding off 1/16" of the rod, which would allow the ball to clear the blade by a greater distance.
The next step was drilling out the internal parts to match my rivets. The rivets are 0.112", so I drilled all the holes to 0.116". The stainless wasn't difficult to drill, but you need to remain aware of work hardening. Cutting oil was used, the drill was sharp, and I didn't dilly-dally.
Here's the finished knife. I think the new rivets look pretty good. The ball cage moves back further now, allowing freer action of the blade. The shortened spring doesn't make a substantial difference in actuating the lock, but the blade seems to flick open much more freely now. Did I NEED to spend three hours on a knife that was pretty good from the factory? Probably not. But I thought I could make it just a hair better, and I did. So for me, the exercise was a success.
's in 10 different steels
