Broken Taiwanese side opener

[Twobit]

I was browsing through the buy & sell pages and saw a listing for an oddball little switchblade and it was exactly like this one I've had in my toolbox for abusive tasks for probably 25 years. My sister in law gave it to me after confiscating it from her son who had shoplifted it from a second hand store. I thought it was just a strangely made manual but after seeing the listing I headed out to the shed to confirm a hunch. Sure enough, the remnant of a broken off leaf spring is visible at the bottom end. The years of abuse and living barely out of the elements in my shed have not been so very kind to this piece. The scales appear to have been glued onto the liners and both are loose with the only thing keeping the back one on being the bail. Wondering about trying to rehab it. Don't know where to get a spring.

[whippersnapper]

If I remember right these had a round leaf spring. You can order spring stock from a place like knfekits.com. Scroll down to the bottom of this page
https://www.knifekits.com/vcom/advanced ... ring+stock

[Twobit]

Thanks, whippersnapper!

[portlandmike]

The originals were German .. these Taiwan imports came later and were manual. Then someone started making springs for them and converting them to auto .. my buddy recently bought a gross and had to put the springs in every one of them

[whippersnapper]

Hey Mike,I have one of those in the green box. Now that you mention it I may have put the spring in it from the broken one I sent to twobit. Or I made a spring out of round stock and that's why I thought they came with a round wire spring.

Did the flat springs come from whomever he bought the knives?

I remember some marked with a German maker but I don't remember the brand name on them. I never handled one. Do you know if they were any better made?

[Twobit]

Whippersnapper, I don't think they could've been made much worse lol. You said a step down from Rizzuto's but it's a pretty big step lol

[Tom19176]

They are FAR worse than Rizzies....I never saw one that was well made. Not sure they were ever made in Germany but rather marked that way? Mike there was a recent flood of these on FB selling sites. I assume your friend was the source?