The Cold Steel Ti-lite 6 is a HEAVY DUTY manual stiletto, in fact, I believe it to be THE most HEAVY DUTY manual stiletto. There are a number of torture test videos to support that notion. I would have been thrilled if Cold Steel offered an auto version. But no such luck.
So I decided to build my own. This project was 5 years in the making. Five years of thinking, studying, measuring, buying parts and materials...and admittedly, a bit of procrastination, mostly the result of self-doubt about my ability to do it.
But it turned out to be easier than I thought. I made the first one about two months ago, it takes me about a week to do one from start to finish. I just finished #3 today.
I've got several pics, and three videos (because you gotta see them in action
).The top one was the first (Version 1), the middle was second (V2), the bottom is the third (V3). There are a few slight differences between the three. It's been an evolution. But all three function exactly the same, and are equally strong. They all fire hard, lock up tight, with no blade or lock play.
From here on out I'm going to focus mainly on V3, as it represents the best that I can do (I'll explain why in a moment).
I find the Ti-Lite 6 a bit difficult to unlock, so I attach a stainless steel extension to the lock face to provide something to grip onto.
The extension is secured to the lock face with three screws and nuts.
I mount my buttons a little high to make them easy to find with ones thumb, if they were flush their checkering would be indistinguishable from the texture of the coarse G10. They also need to be pushed all the way into the handle to fire the knives (all the way until the rocker arm hits the sear), and having them sit higher makes that easier.
I can't use a back spacer due to clearance issues with the spring. There are holes in each liner below the stop pin that correspond with pegs that stick out from the sides of the stock plastic back spacer. I enlarge those holes and run a hardened stainless steel threaded post through them, and through a ss spacer in between the liners. This not only replaces one of the stock posts I had to abandon due to clearance issues, but more importantly it reinforces the pivot and stop pin area of the knife. Since that area is a major stress point of the knife, I believe the addition of the post makes my conversions stronger than a stock T6.
This is as close to centered as I could get the blade. The problem with a $55 knife(zytel handle T6) is that you don't get a high degree of precision . But I love them anyways.
And of course there's a very small "sweet spot" when it comes to tightening the pivot. Too tight and it slows the opening, too loose and you got blade play. What you see is in the "sweet spot".
This is a pic from one of the previous versions, but they all undergo this modification. In order to reduce resistance during opening I "neutralize" the detent. I drill the detent hole all the way through the blade then fill it with a piece of stainless steel rod. The rod is hammered in tight, then the detent side end is sanded flush with the blade. The rod is unhardened, so it sands down easy without affecting the surrounding blade. The result is a smooth surface that the detent ball can glide over.
I also file a relief ramp in the edge of the tang for the detent ball. This makes for a much smoother closing.
Originally I was going to try a coil spring to power the knife. But that would have required a dramatic modification of the pivot area. Not only would that have been a lot of work, but I was concerned that it might weaken the pivot area. I ended up using a leaf spring. But due to clearance issues with the liner lock and stop pin I had to go with a spring that is shorter than what would normally be used in a stiletto switchblade. As a result it's the edge of the blade, about an inch from the choil that pushes the spring into the handle. I blunted the rearmost 1" of the edge, and filed a groove in the tip of the spring to better hold the blade.
The threaded posts, including the stock ones, have very small lips around their heads. So in order to spread the pressure of the screws being tightened out over a larger area I use tight tolerance stainless steel washers under the heads of the posts. I also use handle and pivot screws that are much longer than stock in order to utilize as much threading as possible.
Lastly, a pic of the sear/rocker arm cavity.
And now the videos. Bear in mind that making videos is not in my skill set.
In the order they were made-
Version 1- https://youtube.com/watch?v=vT8FJTFsg04
Version 2- https://youtube.com/watch?v=KB-ABLF4QAY
For Version 3 I did something different. What makes V3 extra special is that I specifically designed and built it to be as easy as possible to take apart and reassemble. Versions 1 and 2 are mine, but I built V3 to sell, and I want the future owner to be able to easily disassemble it for cleaning, inspection, etc, and have just as easy a time reassembling it. This required much tighter tolerances, and a higher degree of precision then I've ever done before. Versions 1 and 2 aren't difficult to reassemble, but it's a bit trickier. You can see in this video how user friendly V3 is. V3 is the last one fired, and then disassembled/reassembled.
EDIT: I have since re-built Version 2 so that it is as easy as V3 to disassemble and reassemble.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BNZFEuz8DQc
So those are my Ti-Lite switchblade conversions. I hope you enjoyed this thread
. That will be it for me for awhile as far as building switchblades. After doing these three in 2 and a half months, I need a break.
), but like I said, I don't see a way for me to do it. In my opinion, and in my experience, the larger size of the Ti-Lite 6 makes it a better candidate for conversion. 