CAUTION: If you don't feel comfortable taking your knife apart, find someone who does or send it back to EKI!
I am not responsible for any damage you may cause to your knife or yourself should you decide to take apart your knife.


I was inspired by Roshi's thread on info a new Emerson owner should know, so I thought I would put together a brief Emerson knife take-apart guide.

These instructions are general in nature and do NOT represent all Emerson knives.
They are provided to help you should you decide to take it upon yourself to clean your knife.
Having said that, the differences among the knife models are not that significant.
The custom versions may be slightly different, especially if they are bolstered.


1a) It might be a good idea to have a few extra screws on hand in case one
gets lost during the cleaning (see this excellent web page by paulcal for some parts info)


1) I start with the knife (in this case a CQC-13), a phillips and a flat screwdriver, my Sentry knife cleaning kit,
and some paper towels or cloth. Note that some of the older knives, and even some of the new ones like the HMMV-K, may use allen screws:




2) I always take off the scale on the non-lock side first. In this case there are 3 liner screws and the pivot screw:



3) In order to take the non-lock side liner off, the 3 liner screws on the other (lock) side of the knife must be removed [edited to show the 3 screws sticking through the G-10 spacer]:




4) Once the liner is off, I then remove the blade along with the washers, the stop pin, and the rest of the pivot screw hardware.
NOTE: I always put the washers back on the same side I took them off and orient them the same way as well:




5) At this point, everything is thoroughly wiped down with the paper towel or cloth, and all the accumulated crud is removed.
I also take a paper clip and stick it through the detent hole to clean the crud out of it
(Don't forget to clean the crud out of the holes in the blade and liners and around the pivot screw hardware! 



6) If it has been a long time since the last cleaning or a new-to-me knife, I would take the back-spacer and the other scale off and inspect and clean.
But since I just cleaned this knife a month or so ago, I didn't remove this hardware this time.
Also note that in order to take off the lock-side scale, the pocket clip screws will probably have to be removed.


7) It's time to put the knife back together
Here I show adding a very small drop of oil (use your favorite lube here, e.g. Militec-1) from my Sentry kit to the washer.
This is repeated for the other washer. [NOTE: be careful not to get oil on the locking bar or the butt of the blade
where the locking bar makes contact when the knife is open, or the lock may slip and someone may get injured!]:



8) Put everything back the same way you took it off and you'll be fine! Don't forget the blade stop pin!
[A note of caution here: make sure the stop pin and pivot screw 'nut' are aligned with the holes in the liner.
If not, you could end up stripping a liner or pivot screw, or mess-up the liner or scale]


9) Next, adjust the pivot screw back to the desired tightness and check to make sure the blade is fairly well centered.
If desired, you can use Loctite or Teflon tape to help keep the pivot screw in place.
[NOTE: If you use Loctite on the pivot screw, you might consider the Blue version over the red one.]

10) Lastly, if I were putting this knife up for a while, I would wipe it down with a suitable oil or protectant.
In my case I would use the Tuf-Cloth from my Sentry kit. But since this one is currently being EDC'd, I didn't do it this time.


There you have it! Not much to it, as that is the way the knives were designed. Thanks Mr. Emerson! 

RAISTE