Reaching out to the Sig Forum trusted brain-trust on this one; I vaguely recall someone here posted about restoring old pocket knives and I'm in need of advice on how to best repair these two:
















These knives have sentimental value to me so I'm looking for a repair that looks original-ish (not looking to let perfection be the enemy of good). As you can see, the pins are either broken or no longer holding in place. So far, I've considered finding a couple of small brass nails and making replacements out of them but that sounds like a crude approach. What say you?

I would just make sure to anneal the brass nail and use thin cardboard spacers so the riveting would not totally bind the blade. I hope this makes sense...

Heat the nail before pressing it in?

Unclear where said spacers would go... Either side of every tool/blade on the nail/pin? Would teflon or brass spacers be better?

What I am trying to say is if you decide to rivet the temp cardboard spacers are meant to be removed after the riveting process so that the movement of the blade is not hindered. This is easily accomplished by wetting it. I hope this makes sense. And yes if you annealed the nail the riveting process would re-harden it but first annealing it will make it easier to fit and make the correct length to pean and finish.

I think Screaming Cockatoo member here does a lot of this kind of knife work. maybe he will chime in also.
I don't think any sort of permanent spacers would work. If you didn't have some sort of temp spacer it would be very easy to make the fit so tight that it would be hard to open/close the blade.

Clipper1, I appreciate all of your advice immensely; the cardboard spacers make a lot more sense now.

I am out of pocket for a while but hope you are able to patch up your knives.