How To Spyderco Manix LW Screw Conversion Guide

[UhOhShizah]

Hello Everyone!

I recently purchased a Rex45 Manix 2 Lightweight. Out of the box the knife was extremely stiff and required two handed opening and closing (see video below).

I love the Manix platform but I also really love taking my knives apart and tinkering with them, so this knife was a pretty big letdown at first. Even with the pivot screw removed completely and oil dripped right into the pivot, the knife was still a two hand operation and not fun to carry.

I took off a chunk of finger trying to one handed whip the knife closed. After that I knew I had to convert the knife body hardware to screws so I can tinker with the knife to get the action more to my liking as revenge.

To my surprise I didn't find much information on the procedure. I found a LOT of people inquiring and getting discouraged by other members saying it was not worth the effort. But I found uxo2's thread documenting his Manix 2 Lightweight conversion and it was extremely helpful.

So for this thread, I wanted to build on what uxo2 had done and make a more in depth guide with a bunch of photos so people can have another source of information to draw from if they want to also complete this mod themselves.

Hope you enjoy.

NOTE: Doing this mod will definitely void your warranty and it is definitely not plug and play easy. So please consider this before attempting.

Shopping List

1. Barrel Pivot Pin - 1/8" x 3/8" x 2/56" Thread
2. Pin Vise Hand Drill
   
3. Drill Press (Will save time and frustration)
   
4. Automatic Center Punch
   
5. 1/8" Drill Bit (for drilling metal)
6. Small Metal File
7. Method of keeping small screws and pivots steady while filing. I used a threaded screw checker.
   
8. Rit DyeMore Liquid Dye

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 1: Drilling Out Peened Rivet Heads

Knife to be modified. Mainx 2 LW - REX45 - Burnt Orange FRN.

Tools Used:

• Pin Vise Hand Drill with 1/8" Drill Bit
• Automatic Center Punch

Use the center punch to punch deep marks into the center of the rivets. In the photo below you can see the center punch on the leftmost rivet and the starting of drilling on the rightmost rivet.

Now, I read that ux02 said that it is best to use a hand drill to prevent damage to the FRN. This is totally true but extremely time consuming. I hand drilled 2 of the 3 rivets and they came out perfect. I got impatient on the 3rd and tried using an electric hand drill and gauged the FRN pretty badly. Each rivet took about 1-2 hours by hand. I ended up borrowing a drill press later on in the conversion. It was a total life saver. I would highly recommend it.

After the head of the rivet is pretty much flush with the washer below I used the action of the center punch to get the rivet out of the knife.

After the rivet was popped out I used the hand drill to widen the body pass through to 1/8". This went like butter using the hand drill.

Note: I was unable to find 1/8" washers with an OD that would fit the existing body cutouts so I did my best to save the existing ones. They did get a bit damaged during drilling but they worked fine in the final product. Note that I did not drill them out to 1/8" and they worked fine for final assembly.

I think in razorburn's conversion thread he went as far as to turn custom washers for this purpose. I did not have the tools or talent to go this far. But if you can do this by all means, do so.

As is stated in ux02's and razorburn's conversion threads, the rivet that passes through the metal back spacer and metal figure 8 stabilizers (rivet above the pivot screw) was the worst one to drill. It gave me so much trouble to get to come through. But after a bunch of drilling and several strikes with the center punch, it finally came through.

It was not the best idea to hand drill these holes to 1/8" so I will handle that in step 4 using a drill press. A user in ux02's thread "cali" said that the existing rivets are 2.7 mm. I think they make barrel pivots for SAK conversions that are close to this size so feel free to try that out if you want and you can skip the widening of the body pass throughs and the drilling of the metal from step 4 all together.

Knife fully disassembled.

Here is the final state of the scales after there were separated. As you can see the electric drill did some damage to the left most rivet when it skipped out of the pilot hole.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 2 - Rit Dye the Burnt Orange FRN

The burnt orange FRN was not really my favorite. Now that I had the knife apart I decided to Rit dye the scales a different color. Chose purple because I felt it would hide the orange better than most of the other available dye colors. Used the synthetic dye based on recommendations from other forum posts.

Used about 1/4 of the bottle for a 1 quart pan. Used a vegetable steamer to keep the scale off the pot bottom.

Scales pre-dye

1 Minute

5 Minutes

10 minutes

15 Minutes

Ended up stopping at 15 minutes. I think the sweet spot if I were to do it again would be somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes. 10 had a bit too much orange showing but 15 was a bit darker than I was going for. But the 15 minute color grew on me because it looks black in most light but in the sun the purple starts to pop.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 3 - Prep 1/8" Dia. x 3/8" Long Barrel Pivots and Screws

The barrel pivots I received arrived like the one on the bottom. The screws were a bit long and wouldn't allow for a snug fit with the scales. I filed the screws down to make a tight fit with the existing washers. I made sure the screws had at least one diameter length of engaged threads to achieve maximum strength. The final product is seen on the top.

To keep the screws steady while filing I used a threaded screw thread checker. I threaded the screw into the 2-56 thread hole and filed to the desired height.

Looked like this. Used a magnet to catch the shavings and frequently checked the screw with the barrel to make sure I didn't take off too much.

I also had to shave down the barrel a bit as well because 3/8" was a bit too long. Used the unthreaded #2 hole in the template to keep the barrel steady.

Test fit the barrel to make sure it was flush on both ends.

Lastly test the fit with the salvaged washers, screw and barrel. Make sure the screw is applying pressure to the washer and keeping the scales tight. Also be sure to de-bur all your screws and barrels before finishing.

This procedure went way smoother than the drilling of the rivets. Took a couple hours of hand filing and test fitting but the end result was pretty clean IMO.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 4 - Metal Drilling w/ Drill Press

I had intended this guide to be used by people who didn't really have the means to use specialized tools to do this work. But I really hit a wall when I tried to widen the metal back spacer and stabilizer pieces to 1/8" (enlarging by about 0.019") to fit the new barrel pivots. There wasn't really a way I could think of to drill these hunks of metal. So I had to resort to getting access to a drill press. I believe ux02 used a diamond bit dremmel for this also if this is something you have.

I first tried to glue all the pieces together using CA glue and one of the drilled rivets so I could make sure all the holes would line up. This didn't work at all. The pieces would easily separate when I was clamping them down.

I ended up just clamping the pieces down using a piece of scrap wood and lining them up as best as I could. The bit went through like butter and the holes were perfect.

Doing this with a drill press was so easy. If I were to do the whole process over again I would use the drill press for everything. It literally took a few seconds each piece.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 5 - Final Assembly

After using the drill press in my friend's garage, I was finished with the mods needed to complete the knife. I got excited and wanted to assemble the knife right away.

Here was the knife right after I assembly with all its screw connection glory.

As you can see the purple looks pretty much black in this lighting.

Video of the action right after assembly. The knife now has drop shut action with absolutely no blade play.

Centering was pretty close to perfect before and after the mod as well.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Conclusions

Like I had mentioned before. I wanted to make a guide on this to give someone who is curious about doing this mod themselves another reference to make the decision on whether or not they want to take the dive.

I live in a small apartment with not much space and I wanted to prove to myself that I could try and make this mod happen with modest hand tools and little to no experience with more invasive knife mods like these. It was by no means easy but it was not extremely difficult to do either. It was a fun challenge and I really think that anybody with patience and the basic tools I listed in the first step can do this mod. (But, for the metal drilling alone, the use of a drill press would have probably made what took me two days into a few hours. So I would highly recommend you do that if you can.)

The knife itself is like night and day to use now. I am not sure what was wrong with the knife when it was brand new out of the box, but it was stiff as hell and not the fun fidget knife Manixes usually are.

This knife will be in my pocket for awhile now so I can test how it will stand up to frequent use. I will have to make another post in 6 months or so to see how my craftsmanship holds up.

I forgot where I read it, but one forum post recommended that using double threaded barrel pivots you can benefit from Red Loctite on one side of the knife just to eliminate the possibility of half of your loosening screws. I may do this in the future if I notice any wiggle in the knife in the future.

But for now it is pretty close to perfect.

I have a few accessories coming in the mail soon. Will have an update post soon.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Step 6 - Manix 2 LW Mods

The next day after completing the knife I got a nice shipment in with a 3/16" ZrO2 Ceramic Ball and a Flytanium Titanium Ball Cage. Now that I am no longer riveted closed I was able to pop the knife apart quickly and throw in the new hardware.

Took her out for one more beauty shot.

Quick action video to show off the new ceramic pop and the drop shut action.

Loving this knife right now. Not only because I spent several days and a bunch of elbow grease on it, this knife is just is so much more enjoyable user then it was before.

The drop shut action is borderline dangerous and the ceramic ball pop with the titanium twang is music to my ears. This knife is going to live in my pocket for awhile now. I'll be back with long term usage notes later on.

Thanks for tuning in.

 

[uxo2]

WooHoo.....
Excellent write up with some nice pics.

Because of your Purple Rit Dye
job...
I may have a to modify two LW Manix's to
get one ""DLT like Purple/DLC"".

A CS S90V LW Manix with DLC blade
and a Rex for the scales.
Yes..I'll post pics when I do.
Just have to get the barrel spacers ordered.

 

[RustyIron]

Thanks for taking the time to show what you did. Yesterday I bagged some replacement rivets for just such a project. I like the riveted look, but it turns out that instead of plated brass, they're plain brass. Mismatched hardware is a nonstarter, so if I proceed, I'll have to plate everything. Perhaps it makes more sense to get the hardware like you did.

 

[UhOhShizah]

WooHoo.....
Excellent write up with some nice pics.

Because of your Purple Rit Dye
job...
I may have a to modify two LW Manix's to
get one ""DLT like Purple/DLC"".

A CS S90V LW Manix with DLC blade
and a Rex for the scales.
Yes..I'll post pics when I do.
Just have to get the barrel spacers ordered.

The black and purple would be very nice, very batman. Most of my blades are coated so it was a nice change of pace to have the raw steel and the dark scales for me. Looking forward to seeing the pics.

You probably have the most modded Manix LWs by far. Don't you have two already?

 

[UhOhShizah]

Thanks for taking the time to show what you did. Yesterday I bagged some replacement rivets for just such a project. I like the riveted look, but it turns out that instead of plated brass, they're plain brass. Mismatched hardware is a nonstarter, so if I proceed, I'll have to plate everything. Perhaps it makes more sense to get the hardware like you did.

I mean you could get some sort of Ti pivot screws and pocket clip screws with a brasslike coating but it might still look a bit off.

I'd love to see the process of replacing the rivets though. Is it riveted on one side and threaded on the other? That might be the best of both worlds.

Please let me know when you do this. Thanks for stopping by.

 

[UhOhShizah]

Manix LW Frankenstein has been in my pocket about a week now. Noticed the centering coming ever so slightly off to the clip side.

Decided to take measures to make sure things cant come loose as easily.

Used a toothpick to apply the red threadlocker to one of the two screws. I will put the permanently threadlocked screw heads on the show side so when I disassemble from the clip side it will be easier.

Coated about 4 or so of the bottom threads.

Took a bit of patience to get the washer to sit nicely with the screw. Because the washer hole is wider than the screw it wants to wander off center when you tighten down and it does not look as clean.

Marked the locked side to keep track of it. Cure for 24 hours.

Used blue threadlocker on the remaining barrell screws and the pocket clip. This will also cure for 24 hours.

Centering came back nicely. Hopefully it sticks around

 

[spoonrobot]

This is a great thread, thanks for taking the time to document in print and with pictures. I love seeing projects like this.

 

[UhOhShizah]

This is a great thread, thanks for taking the time to document in print and with pictures. I love seeing projects like this.

Thanks Spoonrobot! I just noticed that this mod is sparsely documented in the knife community which is a bit rare. Wanted to give us visual learners something to go by.

 

[scottc3]

UhOhShizah YOU THE MAN!
Such a facinating design, always wondered why Spyderco has not revised the Manix lightweight with these mods?

 

[rpttrsn]

Very nice job. It is easier with the right tools.

 

[RustyIron]

I just noticed that this mod is sparsely documented in the knife community which is a bit rare. Wanted to give us visual learners something to go by.

Thank you for the inspiration. After reading about your project, I decided to take the plunge myself. Mine differed primarily that I reassembled with rivets, rather than screws. Before, every time I'd use the knife I'd be disappointed with the action. Now it's spectacular, just like a new knife ought to be.

Here's a picture. Posting inline pictures here is a chore.
http://www.dropbox.com/s/e43m4jfsipehah3/IMG_9794.jpeg?dl=0

 

[c7m2p3]

UhOhShizah YOU THE MAN!
Such a facinating design, always wondered why Spyderco has not revised the Manix lightweight with these mods?

They really should, it would open up so many possibilities from aftermarket scales to blade swaps between models.

 

[RustyIron]

They really should, it would open up so many possibilities from aftermarket scales to blade swaps between models.

I'd rather doubt it. Aftermarket scale makers tend to be imprecise at best. In order for good functioning of the knife, the molded handles of the Manix 2 LW need to be PERFECT.