Swiss Army Knife

One of the scales on my Victorinox Camper Swiss Army knife had come loose so I bought some replacements from eBay and went for an upgrade. The new scales do not have the Camper logo but do have a slot for a pen and they came with a new set of tools, toothpick, tweezers, pin and pen. There was a choice of colours but after thinking about it I chose the classic red.

After watching a few YouTube videos I bought a desk clamp from Amazon to apply even pressure to fix the scales.

I removed the scale tools and the old scales easily popped off.

Once the scales were removed I took the opportunity to throughly clean the knife with soapy water and a washing up sponge and then oiled all the blade joints with some WD-40 applied with a cocktail stick so the knife was not soaked in oil. (I regularly use the large blade for cooking and I do not want excess WD-40 in my food.)

To help to fix the new scales I soaked them in hot water to soften them slightly. After a couple of minutes in the water I dried them with kitchen towel and then assembled the knife and scales in the wooden vice. Ensuring everything lined up under light pressure in the vice.

The vice worked perfectly – the pressure was applied evenly and both scales popped on securely. A bit of extra pressure closed all the gaps between the scales and the knife body.

A quick check that the new scales were fitted correctly, a polish and fitting the removable tools, including a mini screwdriver in the corkscrew and the job was finished.

Top tip – use this type of vice – the wooden jaws do not damage the scales and the pressure is applied evenly when attaching the scales.

Click on the images for a larger version.