- Joined
- Mar 15, 1999
- Messages
- 567
Mods: This thread may be better suited for the Shop Talk forum
please feel free to move it to a more appropriate location if necessary.
After seeing Matt Lameys thread about the rebuilt Cold Steel Trailmaster, Ive been thinking a lot about the feasibility of re-working some of my factory fixed blades. Like many of the other participants in these forums, Ive seen my taste in cutlery evolve over the years from relatively low-cost production knives to higher-end factory pieces and eventually customs. As a result, I have a drawerful of older factory knives that I never use anymore. Some of these knives are perfectly decent pieces, they just dont appeal to me the way that my customs do. Still, there are a number of these older blades that have enough good features to have the makings of a potentially great using knife, IMHO. One that comes to mind is the Cold Steel Recon Scout. Even though there are a lot of things that I despise about this knife (Kraton handle, black-coated blade, overly thick edges) there are a lot of features that I really like the blade shape & size, the robust construction and the good (if simple) carbon steel. Id love to see this knife given a treatment similar to the Trailmaster that Matt worked on thinned-out edge, sharpened clip, satin finish and Micarta (or wood) handle. Unfortunately, I lack the skills and equipment to make these changes myself. I realize that Matt is not looking to take on any more projects like this at this current time; does anyone know of anyone else who would be willing to do similar work on factory knives? Ive worked with a couple of guys who do aftermarket work on folders, but I dont know anyone who provides these types of services for fixed blades. I remember that one of the forumites posted some pictures of some beautiful modifications that he had made to a CS Recon Scout a few months ago, but I dont recall the gentlemans name. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
It should probably be noted that my Recon Scout is one of Cold Steels factory seconds; the only flaw that Ive noticed in the knife is a somewhat blunt tip (although I suppose that there could be some unwanted surprises lurking under the black coating on the blade
). I have no idea as to whether this would even be a cost-efficient project
it may well be cheaper to have a custom knife built from the ground up than to modify this old hunk o steel 
. It just seems a shame to let this knife collect dust in the drawer
I thought it might be fun to explore my options.
Jim
After seeing Matt Lameys thread about the rebuilt Cold Steel Trailmaster, Ive been thinking a lot about the feasibility of re-working some of my factory fixed blades. Like many of the other participants in these forums, Ive seen my taste in cutlery evolve over the years from relatively low-cost production knives to higher-end factory pieces and eventually customs. As a result, I have a drawerful of older factory knives that I never use anymore. Some of these knives are perfectly decent pieces, they just dont appeal to me the way that my customs do. Still, there are a number of these older blades that have enough good features to have the makings of a potentially great using knife, IMHO. One that comes to mind is the Cold Steel Recon Scout. Even though there are a lot of things that I despise about this knife (Kraton handle, black-coated blade, overly thick edges) there are a lot of features that I really like the blade shape & size, the robust construction and the good (if simple) carbon steel. Id love to see this knife given a treatment similar to the Trailmaster that Matt worked on thinned-out edge, sharpened clip, satin finish and Micarta (or wood) handle. Unfortunately, I lack the skills and equipment to make these changes myself. I realize that Matt is not looking to take on any more projects like this at this current time; does anyone know of anyone else who would be willing to do similar work on factory knives? Ive worked with a couple of guys who do aftermarket work on folders, but I dont know anyone who provides these types of services for fixed blades. I remember that one of the forumites posted some pictures of some beautiful modifications that he had made to a CS Recon Scout a few months ago, but I dont recall the gentlemans name. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
It should probably be noted that my Recon Scout is one of Cold Steels factory seconds; the only flaw that Ive noticed in the knife is a somewhat blunt tip (although I suppose that there could be some unwanted surprises lurking under the black coating on the blade
). I have no idea as to whether this would even be a cost-efficient project
it may well be cheaper to have a custom knife built from the ground up than to modify this old hunk o steel . It just seems a shame to let this knife collect dust in the drawer
I thought it might be fun to explore my options.Jim
. Since the work that I'm comtemplating will probably involve the removal of quite a bit of metal from the blade, I thought it might be prudent to see if I could contract this project out to someone with a better shop and a lot more experience...