You've heard of Salt and Pepper? Well,this is Salt and Rice

[STR]

Some of you guys have been rather curious since my post asking for an x-ray view of the insides of the Delica/Salt models. I appreciate your help and the great pictures.

I should be done with this project shortly. But for now the parts are cut out, drilled and pretty much ready to be put together. I'm just taking a break to eat and get some refreshments.

What we have here in the pic is the original handle of my Salt 1 cut in half length wise (there goes the warranty right there) so I could get a view of the spring holder back spacer design. (which is top left of the new ti spacer spring holder with the spring in it all ready to go where it will sit in the new ti liners) I hated having to cut the knife open but I needed to so I could copy the spacer bar/spring holder in some 6AL-4V titanium in the same thickness as the lock and blade. I cut out the spacer bar spring holder with my scroll saw and traced it on the ti. That is done along with the liners also made of some thinner .050 6AL-4V titanium. Once I put it together you will be better able to see the very subtle changes I made to the handle in the before and after pics.

For now everything is marked, drilled and threaded. The handle scales are cut out and I went ahead and made me a custom titanium pocket clip out of the same ti as the liners. (For tip up carry of course.) I figured if it was going to be rust resistant and hardy little beasty of a knife I may as well go all the way. The little pins in the spacer bar are aluminum. These give some added assurance that the pressure from the spring won't tweak the metal and/or break it. What is there now is temporary as the final assembly will have those going through both liners as well as the spring holder.

Hopefully everything will be together and I'll be able to show the completed knife either later tonight or tomorrow morning sometime. Stay tuned.

[i.v]

so far looks awesome, can't wait to see the result

[Blades]

Interesting.
Looking forward to the completed knife.



Blades

[Senate]

so if I got it right, it's gonna be Ti liners and wood handles?

that's so cool!

[STR]

Yes. It has titanium liners and lignum vitae handles scales. I wrote a bit about lignum on the thread that started this all over here..http://spyderco.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14919

I am not a big fan of the FRN or Zytel or whatever you want to call it. Actually I really like natural materials in general for handle scales. I don't know why but I'd sooner have an antler handle than just about anything on my fixed blades and on my carry knives I really prefer wood.

I still have some 'shoe shining' to do tomorrow on this one whenever I get out to the shop as the knife is still a bit 'square' and needs some refinement yet.

I will say this. I am glad I used my own knife to experiment on. This was hard. Much harder than the Gerbers, Case and Schrade lock backs I've rebuilt. I think it is in the locks and the lever. Spyderco does something strange with them that I've never seen before. These parts don't just have round holes and everything was an in between size. Not the norm that I've come to see in other brands and I am not sure what that is all about. Spydercos are more unique than people realize I have learned that.

I pulled it off pretty well though despite the challenge. I don't know that I'll do another Spyderco after this. I will have to recover first from this one. I had hoped to rid the knife of the vertical movement that it had before starting this project but it is still there. For some reason every lock back I get from Spyderco has just a tad of upward movement in the blade. Some don't when I first get them but develop it a bit later after use. I used to think it was the FRN giving out but then I had it happen on a stainless Endura and then on my Chinook and my Manix also. I have to think this is on purpose now after seeing the inner design. The way they are made may actually help make the lock stronger and help to tolerate stress better by equally distributing it or something like that. I may be asking about that here soon to Sal.

Anyway here it is as of this writing. My Salt 1 is now fatter. She gained a bit of weight in the last 24 hours. The good news is that during the whole job the blade only 'bit me' one time. The price you pay for working around razor sharp edges I guess. I didn't even have to pull out a bandaid on this project though. LOL

Here it is before- closed.



And open:



And here it is in the after life. If you look closely at the before closed shot and compare to the after closed shot you can see where I brought up the handle to cover the back of the blade when the knife is closed and where I brought it all up to cover the grind line evenly. Like I said earlier. Subtle changes. Anyway, I'm beat. Let me know your thoughts.

[dialex]

Nice work, congratulations and thanks for sharing