I bought the SOG TF1-CP Trident clip knife and have been carrying it every day for over 2 years now. I wanted to give it a good cleaning before my next video which will be a review of the knife and my opinion of it after carrying it over this time.

The procedure should be the same for the Mini Trident TF-21 . Because this knife has SOG assisted technology, and due to the arc-actuator locking system, it can be a little intimidating at first to disassemble.  Also note – you may void the warranty if you do decide to open the knife up as well. I tend to prefer to service my own stuff, so I decided to open it up and give it a good cleaning. This is my first time I have ever disassembled one of these, and since I have been carrying and using it for a while,  it is pretty cruddy on the inside.

To start we are going to want a well-lit and clean workspace. We will be working with some small parts, so a magnetic parts tray is a good idea to keep it all together. You will need a 1.5mm and 2mm Allen wrench or screwdriver bit as well. Since this is a spring-loaded knife, it is usually a good idea to tape the edge so that you are less likely to cut yourself while handling the parts. If you take it apart correctly, you shouldn’t have anything spring apart on you, but I would still recommend taping the edge.

We will start by opening the knife, so that it takes the tension of the internal spring, and then remove the Allen bolts. There are 5 bolts around the edges of the handle, including the pocket clip bolt, and then one more in the hinge itself.

After the bolts are all removed, we should be able to separate the handle. Be careful not to lose any of the small parts on this step. There are a couple small parts related to the Arc Actuator locking mechanism that have caused some confusion to others on re-assembly.  One is a very small U shaped spring; the other is this small ball bearing that is part of the detent system for the safety switch.  I detail where both of those pieces go in the video.

After the remaining disassembly of the various springs and two Teflon washers, I wash all the parts with an all-purpose spray cleaner. I then reassemble the knife and get the correct tension on the hinge bolt, which will affect the opening speed.