Emerson CQC14 Frame Lock

I've lost count of how many of these I've done now of this particular model. I think this is number 17 of this model for the frame lock conversion. Anyway, this one here is .160 thickness 6AL-4V titanium with my signiture stop pin replacment to rid the knife of the famous Emerson Rattle much talked about on the forums. The loose fitting stop pin was something I have been repeatedly asked about fixing while I had the knives here, not by everyone mind you but enough to finally make me sit down and just come up with a screw down replacment type of stop for the blade. 

You can see this method of doing the stop pin with a hardened steel barrel on other models of Emerson folders here in my blog also if you scroll down and move along to older posts. I only do this on the frame lock conversions. How I do it is to simply cut to length and fit what is sold as a hardened stainless pivot barrel in 3/16" diameter using a matching flat head black coated phillips head screw on the visible lock side and by hiding a T7 Torx button head screw under the G10 side nice and neat. This button head just happens to fit exactly in the small recess cut into the underside of all Emerson G10 scales. The pin can't be overtightened because its cut exactly to the right length so it will only go in that far and stop the screws. Once loctite is applied to the screws its set and ready to roll and no more rattle.

Being a knife repairman for many years I have always been a bit wary of loose fitting stop pins held in place by nothing other than the pivot barrel screw tension. I have actually been mailed these Emerson folders and other brands of folding knives like Kabar D2 tactical folders where the stop pin fell out because the pivot tension was allowed to get sloppy by the user. On Emerson knives I've had some end line users report to me that they loosened the pivot on purpose because the blade Waved opened easier that way and I've noted many times how the pivot tension was lose and the blade had what I'd term severe lateral (side to side) play. You might also note in these and other pictures that I have this habit of purposely forcing the 82 degree drill to skip when I recess just a bit on the holes for the flat head screws as well as the lanyard hole. Personally I think it looks really cool when the drill skips and makes that 'jeweled' affect. 

This folder gained a bit of weight. It weighs here at 5.7 ounces compared to roughly 5 ounces before getting started. Lock cuts to spring the lock are left extra thick. Action is smooth and overall it went together quite well. As usual no permanent modifications were made to any of the original Emerson parts. You can probably see from the pictures if you look close and compare that I have not even bead blasted the non lock side liner of the folder in an effort to keep it original.In the end all I did was build a new lock side to replace the original lock G10 scale. The knife will still go right back together as it was shipped new and no one would know I was even in the thing. Factory lock and stop pin are in a baggy to ship with the folder. I like doing things this way because of several reasons but mostly its from being a life long knife collector. In my mind you can't call this a modification really because nothing is changed. All thats happened is that a screw on part has been replaced so should the knife one day become a collector piece for whatever reason many years after all of us are long gone well, it could still be assembled by some future collector and pass as an all original CQC14 by Emerson. 

Thanks for looking. 

STR