We do not ship the Skaha with loctite on the two pivot screws (or any of the screws). In general, this is because the Skaha pivot area is subject to initial bearing to blade wear-in, which may call for some adjustments during this period.
In addition, knives that are fidgeted with a lot, used hard or otherwise accumulate wear over time are eventually going to need the pivot adjusted to maintain the ideal preload on the bearings. Those adjustments are harder to do if the threads have thread-lock on them.
The Skaha was designed to be maintainable which also means that it needs to be maintained. Usually, this amounts to a quick periodic inspection for side to side blade play. And if the knife feels gritty or looks like it may have pocket lint on the internals a soapy water bath, drying and oiling will do it good.
Our guiding philosophy is to only use thread locker if the situation demands it. You may have a particular knife that tends to loosen, perhaps because of vibration, grit binding between the scale and the pivot screw head, being subject to wide temperature swings, or any number of other hard to foresee circumstances. If this is your case, then a medium thread-locker is probably your answer. If you rarely find side to side blade play when you do you check, just re-tighten as needed and don’t bother with the loctite.
If frequent pivot loosening is happening, we suggest you apply a tiny bit of medium strength loctite blue paste to each pivot screw thread, tighten the pivot screws evenly (T10 Torx) just to the point that side to side play goes away and maybe 1/32 or 1/16th of a turn more. Check the action. If action is sluggish, back off one of the screws till there’s barely noticeable play again and readjust slightly less tight. Too tight leads to unnecessary wear and sluggish action. You want the blade to swing freely but not have play. Let the loctite cure overnight.
When checking pivot screws and blade play, take an extra minute to check the 4 standoff screws (T8) and clip mount screw(s) (T10) for tightness. They are much less likely to come loose, but if you find yourself tightening them fairly often, then they should also have some thread-locker. The loctite we suggest is part number 37643.
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