Well, I am getting geared up to swap every one of my BM scales to carbon fiber over the next few weeks and months. Personally, I love CF and I think it is a great material for high end knives. One obstical in my path was getting inside my mini Rukus auto. I had been cautioned about disassembling an auto because of how hard they can be to get back together... it wasn't hard at all.

Now that I have voided my warranty, you can enjoy the pics. Now that I know I can get it back together, it is time to start making some black dust

Here is the used 6150 I picked up last week, it has seen a few miles and was in much need of some maintenance, after a few minutes with a diamond stone and the others on the sharpmaker, we had the s30v back to shaving sharp. The serrations have been beat on, bummer, but it is still a great knife!



Now there were close to 45-50 individual parts on this auto including the hardware so I used a magnetic tray to catch everything and make sure I didn't loose anything.

Then I heated up my soldering iron to break free any thread locker that might have been used on each bolt before removing it. Just a few seconds and the iron does its job.

Once you pull off the g10 and micarta screws, the clip, the pivot screws, and the stop pin screws you can lift off the scales and you can start to see the auto's magic.



Then pull the axis lock by removing the omega spring and axis bar and press out the pivot for the blade. This is the part that drew me to benchmade and it is SO SIMPLE! Here is a cool shot of the springs, housings, and washers still in place before splitting the halves.



Now you need to crack this knife in half, there are a lot of things that want to go flying so don't be afraid to wrap it up in a paper towel like a burrito before wiggling the two halves apart. They will fall apart easy enough, I just wasn't sure if springs were going to go flying out or not.. they didn't. Here you can see a close up of the safety with one liner removed.



And once the liners are seperated, you can start to see how simple the auto spring mechanism works. I love good designs... they seem to be simple and effective! You can see the machined "Q" on the blade where the spring rests into and the indexing groove where the spring is put in torsional load. If you look on the liner, you can just see the other part of the spring sticking out at 6 o'clock of the stainless housing around the pivot.



Here is a shot of the liner, spring, spring housing, and washer before they are disassembled for cleaning.



And just the housing for the spring remaining in the liner with the spring and washer removed.



Other than that, there isn't much to it!

Putting it back together just takes a little patience and I found that if you lined up both springs (relaxed) with the blade and pinched them together, then you could begin to rotate the blade into tension and install the stop pin and sleeve, then the rest is just reassembly.

Hope you liked it, I am planning on one peice carbon fiber scales but wanted to see how much machining behind the scales was really needed, and there is a lot

I cleaned up everything and applied the lightest gun lube I have to the pivot and washers.

I must say I was really impressed with BM's tolerances, and design. Although there are a lot of seperate peices there is NOTHING complicated on this knife whatsoever. Everything is very fail safe. I guess that is why I am such a fan!

Thanks for taking us through the process of taking the 6150 apart.

I've had my new 5500 for a couple of days and really enjoy how smooth it is. Your descriptions with the photos really make me appreciate how strong a design the Otto Axis is.

Keep us updated with the custom scale process, but just a reminder to watch that fine G-10 dust. Please make sure you're wearing a respirator and not just a particulate dust mask. Lots of ventilation will help too.

Another thing with the dust...watch your clothes, the stuff gets everywhere. I've read some use those throw away painter's coveralls over their street clothes for extra 'insurance'.

Thanks for the photos and explanation of the auto's guts.
I am looking forward to seeing the finished 6150CF.

very well done.

Cool pics,i am betting bm is loving it.......

thanks very much for those pictures!
i were wondering how those autos work: i've got the answer ...

that's pretty cool. i like how the coil spring is captured.

I am interested in knowing if a non-auto can be made auto. My non-auto mini rukus has the same liners, but i am not sure about the blade having the notch for the spring.

quote:

Rezarf <><

Thanks for all of the awesome photos and insight into the BM autos.

Anyway you could post a picture that shows the inside of both handle scales?

I just got turned down by Chax to have my 5000 replaced with CF because he said

quote:

Gee Bud, i really hesitate to do any more autos. They require additional routing which is pretty hairy, to accomadate the spring. Any deviation on my spring groove DOES affect the action. Sorry about this. chase

I'm trying to deside if it'd be worth it to attempt to accomplish this myself or just seek out another custom knife maker to possibly try.

Hi,

thanks for this review Great job.

I own a 6150 with silver scales and the blade and "auto action" is getting smoother and smoother all the time. I really enjoy using it.

Regards,

Julian