Question about my Ithaca Knick

[Stan Hoover]

Well,

I was wrong also, it is only a small wood screw, not a show stopper till you get another Phil. I took a Knick apart and will post a couple pictures so to better explain.

Stan

[Kevin McCormack]

If you need a new one, don't Gyro Gearloose it - call Diamond Gunsmithing in Ithaca NY and talk to Les Hovencamp. He and others there are veteran Ithaca gunsmiths (they actually built them "back in the day"). They have most all of the original parts (you may have to have it engraved per grade, or maybe Les can have that taken care of for you). I sent a member of our local club up to him in late February with a beautiful 4E that had a really gnarly ejector problem in the forend mechanism. He fixed the gun while my friend drank coffee at Starbuck's for an hour or so. Great people to deal with and first rate factory quality parts and work.

[Stan Hoover]

I’m including 2 pictures, one of the forend steel and latching mechanism outside of the wood and one picture with everything together again with a picture that looks right like yours Phil.
The bottom end of the screw that you see inside the fore arm is the screw that keeps the spring mechanism in place that applies tension to the lug. Pretty simple operation. The small screw was changed in later guns, Knick and NID’s!

[Stan Hoover]

Phil,
Is this the same Knick you shared last week, serial #4018..?

If it is, I believe the forend screw that you’re missing is the one I posted pictures of, a wood screw that is approximately 3/8” in length.

So after thinking about this some more, I was looking over a late NID and then decided to check a fairly late Knick, serial # 404…, At some point they moved away from a wood screw and switched to a machine screw while placing a small square piece of metal to serve as a nut. I would assume this was to solve the problem of the small wood screw loosening overtime

[Phil Yearout]

Thanks for all your trouble Stan, and Kevin, thanks for the tip. The thing that has me confused is that the hole in the latch is obviously tapped; if it takes a wood screw it wouldn’t be tapped, and if it’s for a machine screw with a nut it wouldn’t be either right?

[Phil Yearout]

[QUOTE=Phil Yearout;369382]Thanks for all your trouble Stan, and Kevin, thanks for the tip. The thing that has me confused is that the hole in the latch is obviously tapped; if it takes a wood screw it wouldn’t be tapped, and if it’s for a machine screw with a nut it wouldn’t be either right? Stan, is either of the latches you’re showing tapped?

[Stan Hoover]

I wouldn’t see any reason for it to have been tapped, not sure.

Maybe a wanna be gunsmith had aspirations of how to modify a screw to help keep the screw from backing out?

And just to be clear, I’m not a gunsmith, probably fall in the wannabe category

[Stan Hoover]

Yes,

After a closer look, in both screw applications, the hole in the latch is tapped.

Now to figure out why, I’ll have to some more digging, I’m fairly certain in some applications I’ve seen the screw coming from inside the fore arm thru the latch, was it on extractor NID’s?
I do have one Knick, a Victory Grade where the screw is opposite, fairly certain that it may not have left Ithaca like this, but then again, I may be wrong.

[Phil Yearout]

Originally Posted by Stan Hoover

Maybe a wanna be gunsmith had aspirations of how to modify a screw to help keep the screw from backing out?

If so, it obviously didn't work !

[Stan Hoover]

Phil,
given the the Knick’s I’ve been able to look at, the latest Knick with the wood screw in the latch is in the 402,7,, area, the few that I looked at over 404,,, all have the machine screw with the retaining nut on the inside.

If you remove your forend from the gun, and then look down inside the latch, do you see a small indentation where the square retaining nut may have been, or if there was one it may be loose in there somewhere? I’m fairly certain you need a wood screw.