Thread: Can't get the pivot to tighten

I just bought an Es-Ex of the Bay and it's in awesome shape, except the pivot pin is a tad loose. I've tried tapping lightly with a hammer, I've tried tapping firmly with a hammer, I've even come dem close to banging with a hammer, and nothing happens. Nothing changes even slightly. Any advice? It's not all that bad, so I'm not that worried about it, I just figured if I could give it a couple taps and tighten it why not?

Before going into a tapping frenzy please tell us first what scales are we talking about. The last thing we want is for you to continue your tapping dance only to hear several threads later you cracked the scale at the pivot.

Can you post us a close up of the pivot side. We need to look and see what it all looks like. Is it brass, nickel silver? Did you try tapping slightly contouring instead of flat tapping. Are you laying the pivot pin on a steel surface like an anvil, vise, jewelers block or anything remotely hard enough. Are you tapping on both sides...

The scales appear to be a black acrylic.

The pin appears to be nickel (at any rate it's silver colored).

I'm not sure what you mean by contouring so I'm gonna assume I didn't do that.

I'm tapping on a large crescent wrench, so I should be fine on that count.

I did tap both sides.

I'll get some pics of the pivots.

Contouring is when you slightly rotate the pin in a circular motion, spreading the impact area of the hammer all around the pin head. This flares the edges of the pin thereby tightening the scales. But you do have to be careful, to tight and you'll crack the scales. Also, you can slide off the pin and damage the scales also. You just want to use enough power on your stroke so you would be able to stick your finger under the hammer head and not hurt yourself. Any harder than that and you risk the chance of bending the pivot pin, and that will cause your blade to go off center and possibly hit the scales while closing, causing damage to the edge.

What he means by “contouring” is… you need to tap around the edges pin-head, not dead center as if you’re driving home a nail.
Taping the edges of the pin-head will make the head mushroom, and curl over, and push against the lock washer and joint will tighten.
A round face hammer (the ball end of a ball-peen hammer) is the best tool for the job (some folks will use a table spoon) because the curve of the face (and a steady hand) will contact the edge of the pin-head, while (for the most part) miss hitting the lock washer.

Also, there are some vintage razors with pins that only appear to be “pin and lock washer”, but is in fact a solid head (like a nail), no amount of tapping will tighten the joint because the head is solid, however these are easily identified as most times the solid head (some call it a false head) is on the front side of the razor, so you need to tap on the rear side pin-head to tighten the pivot joint.

Rub the scales with polishing cloth, if the cloth is stained brown and there is a formaldehyde odor then it is most likely Bakelite, this material is very brittle and I would be surprised it has not shattered while you have been “firmly” tapping… maybe you are using the correct (light) force but only need to hit the pin in the right place as mentioned above.

Hope this helps some

If the pin was done a bit long you may risk bending the pin within the scales. Not a good thing. I have tightened many a pin but I wouldn't consider myself an expert. If they don't come round fairly easily I leave well enough alone.YMMV.