
Building a Liner Lock: The Modern First Mechanism
The liner lock is the modern folder’s default mechanism and the standard first LOCKING build: every part is visible, every adjustment reachable, every…

ForgeBrain
The precision end of the craft: how folders work, from pivots and washers to detents and locks, and the build path from a first friction folder to a tuned liner lock.
9 guides in this section · free to read
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Every guide on this shelf, with the question closest to your bench first.

The liner lock is the modern folder’s default mechanism and the standard first LOCKING build: every part is visible, every adjustment reachable, every…

Two folders can share identical parts lists and feel nothing alike — one glassy and crisp, one gritty and vague. The difference is tuning: the last…

A fixed blade is a shape; a folder is a MACHINE — a dozen parts in moving agreement, where a thousandth of an inch is the difference between glass-smooth…

A folder blade is a knife AND a machine part, and the machine half has opinions about the grinding. Everything from the EDC geometry guide still applies …

Folder kits — pre-machined blades, liners and hardware you fit, finish and assemble — occupy an odd place in the craft’s pride structure: quietly used…

The lock is the folder’s signature mechanism, and every major type is a different answer to one question: what holds the blade open when the cut pushes…

Folder hardware is a small parts bin with outsized consequences: the pivot, two washers and a handful of screws decide more of the knife’s feel than any…

The slipjoint is the folder the twentieth century carried: no lock, just a spring bar riding the blade’s tang cam — biased closed, biased open, with the…

The friction folder is folder-making with the hard parts removed and the important parts kept: no lock, no detent, no spring — just a blade, a pivot, and…
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Same bench
I machine the parts, hand-assemble, track and test Torus grinders in Sterling, Illinois. Most orders ship in seven to ten business days from time of order.

Current dual-axis platform with a fiber-laser-cut 6061 chassis and single-knob tracking.

Current dual-axis platform with a steel chassis, more mass and less vibration.

Prior-design aluminum chassis, 90-degree tilt and 1.5-inch tooling arms.

One-man shop
I answer my own email. Tell me what you are building and what the steel is doing, and I will tell you what I would try.