Those are Cuscadi's "Silk" CF handle-slabs. I like 'em!
The Glesser look-and-feel has suited me fine, so I've been disinclined to mod or customize. But, in light of Koenigsegg's report in a recent thread on pivot-spinning, I imagined W&R would give me no joy, and there was Lucas at Cuscadi ready to help.
I've learned a few things along the way and I want to share.
The Urban truly is a wonderfully simple design, but if you treat it like other Spydies, you could find yourself in trouble like me and others.
What sets the Urban apart (and the Squeak, if not the Pingo, too) is that its pivot, a flattened Chicago-screw assembly, relies on an unlined FRN slab for resistance to torque (whereas the metal liners on Japan-made Spydies provide this resistance, or so I infer, as I'm not a disassembler).
No biggie, UNLESS you, like me, are accustomed to torquing (always gently, of course) a pivot-screw to remove blade play.
My Urban kept getting this play (the male part of the Chicago-screw assembly always backed out during my compulsive open-close fidgets) and, before even contemplating thread-locker, I had ended up turning the male part deeper and deeper, overcoming the handle's resistance, and creating a spin that prevented me from backing out the male part. And still I had side-to-side blade play. :mad:
Once the Cuscadi slabs arrived, I tried numerous desperate methods to get the pivot-screw out of the original ones, including buying a special leather tool, heating the pivot (with a soldering pen; in boiling water), and applying TedP's dowel and Superglue, all to no avail.
Then I removed the handle's other Chicago-screws. My thought was that I could pry the FRN slabs apart to get the resistance I needed (if the slabs snapped, so be it). I pried, unscrewed, and out came the male part!
But I doubt prying was the critical force. Superglue had seeped into the FRN slab to secure the female part of the Chicago-screw assembly to the slab...
Hey, Sal, I think this fact speaks volumes for CQI, if opposing screw-heads (as on costlier Taichung- and Golden-made Spydies) do not.
Once I reassembled my Urban, I immediately sought just the tension needed to prevent blade play (didn't really need to fight the resistance), backed out the male part of the Chicago-screw assembly, dropped a dab of clear nail-polish into the female part, and returned the male part to the same tension.
Since letting the nail polish dry for a few hours yesterday, my subsequent repeated fidget tests have yet to dislodge the male part of the Chicago-screw assembly. My Urban still has no blade-play.
