The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
I'm using Ballotini general purpose impact beads. Not sure on the pressure. I'll check tomorrow. I dont bother trying to protect the edge. Instead, when I'm working near the edge I keep the nozzle blasting from the spine of the knife so the media blows past the edge instead of crashing into it. Even then they need to be touched up afterwards.
I've done a few already and infi doesn't rust. I have had it get tiny dark spots. Not sure what to call it, but reeeeeally tiny dark spots and useually in spots that don get touched, lIke right next to the scaless at the pommel or ricasso. After the initial blasting, I oil it once and that's the last time it sees anything but soap, water and a rag. Maybe oiling would stop it. I don't know. They are such tiny spots that they are hard to find so I don't worry about it. I've never blasted SR101 because I think it would increase the potential for rust BUT I do think that if a guy blasted it to totally clean the surface and then followed with a quick polish, it would probably work pretty well. The stuff I'm blasting with leaves the surface pretty darn smooth so it doesn't take much effort at all to go from a frosted look to shiney.
Thank you. We have someone come and service our machine every once in a while. They bring fresh media with them.
The decarb doesn't hide pits and blasting won't make them go away. The decarb layer is really thin. Its not like a layer of paint. More like the blueing on a gun. Wear on a blasted finish will be a shiney spot. Once I get a shiney spot, I like to take some steel wool loaded with a cream metal polish and rub down the rest of the blade to even it out. Gives it a nice look that's somewhere between the frosty blasted look and a mirror polished look. Kind of hard to explain so here's an example.
I do indeed chemically strip prior to blasting.
The decarb doesn't hide pits and blasting won't make them go away. The decarb layer is really thin. Its not like a layer of paint. More like the blueing on a gun. Wear on a blasted finish will be a shiney spot. Once I get a shiney spot, I like to take some steel wool loaded with a cream metal polish and rub down the rest of the blade to even it out. Gives it a nice look that's somewhere between the frosty blasted look and a mirror polished look. Kind of hard to explain so here's an example.
As much as I liked the San Francisco Giants orange and black, I think it really looks like a serious piece of outdoor gear now. So without further adieu here she is in all her naked INFI glory.
I was looking at it last night, thinking the same thing. Lol! If I get a chance thus weekend it just might happen.
