Cabelas Alaskan guide 110

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I recently purchased the Alaskan guide 110 in s30v. I noticed that the blade spine is uncoated whereas the rest of the blade is black. Is this normal or was the spine missed in the coating process?
 
Its normal.

Both knives have no coating on top. The knife on the left shows it better.
 
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Makael is 100% right. Mine gave me the same "huh?" when it arrived as well, no coating on the spine. Now I kinda like the contrast lol
 
Put another way... the blade looses the coating on the spine when the assembled knife is polished
 
Butt if it comes off during polishing... Doesn't that make it kinda useless?

Honest question...
 
It's on the back of the spine. Not the sides or blade side.
 
What Makael said.... but if you mean that the coating is useless if it comes off so easily.... Saying that the blade finish was 'polished' off may be a little simplistic... I believe there may be some light grinding/sanding involved to shape and level things up. /Roger
 
The coating is very tough & strong. I doubt it can be buffed off at finishing. As I've have sanding mine inadvertently while sharpening.
During rebeveling. The coating will scrap off but it doesn't look uniform. It looks speckled. As I wasn't intending to scrap it off. Whereas
the coating removed from the spine is very uniform looking. Like it never got it or it was intentionally removed. As in using a hard leather
wheel with compound applied. Even the spine edges have a crisp edge to them. This is not left on there by normal polishing. As in normal
polishing a soft cotton (loose not sewn) wheel is used which cannot produce a crisp edge like that left on the spine. I think we need
someone like Jeff Hubbard with first hand knowledge to lend us insight on how these are done. Until then...
The coating is a big step up in blade protection. How the blade glides through material being cut and cut material does not stick to it. DM
 
My guess is that when the blades are coated, they're coated 100%. Then after the knife is assembled, it's ground off when shaping the spine and blade/lock transition.

This is the best photo I could dig up showing how the blade and lock bar from the Federal kit I pit together. You can see the hump at the end of the blade and lock bar where the two meet. Once assembled I ground the spine to smooth the transition between the two.

This is a Federal though so a modern 110 could be different though I expect the raw parts would be treated the same.

Speculation of course....
 
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Yes, their coated a 100%. I've seen photos of one with a unsharpened edge and the edge has the coating on it. DM
 
Called Buck today and tech said it is normal. It's buffed off spine when final buffing is done to smooth spine with back spring. Due to the fact that the blade is fully coated before assembly.
 
Ok. I've been working the night shift on predators trying to tear into our chicken pens and we have a full moon cycle going. I have been carrying the 110 Alaskan Guide model. Using it mostly to cut limbs out of a shooting lane or whittle me a toothpick while I waited for any
hungry varmints to show. It's been a good helper along the trail with me. DM
 
David Martin said:
Yes, their coated a 100%. I've seen photos of one with a unsharpened edge and the edge has the coating on it. DM
Click to expand...
That's the BuckCote model which was chisel sharpened to expose the coating (TiN) on the micro edge. In use the blade wore away in preference to the coat, so the knife was self sharpening. They didn't catch on because nobody knew how to sharpen them.
The trick to sharpening them is to grind the uncoated side on an extra fine DMT stone and wipe the burr back into the grinding plane (edge trailing) with a ceramic knife blade. Then grind some more and repeat until the coating is standing proud.
The working edge is inherently twice as sharp as a double bevel because the apex is twice as acute. BuckCote was also called Ion Fusion.
 
Did you see photos of Alaskan Guide models that were sharpened on one side only? My A/G's have double bevels. Did the ones you saw in photos have single bevels?
 
I don't think it had much of a bevel. And I recall the guy saying he was going to leave it like he purchased it. So, I don't think he was going to
sharpen it. A fluke. DM
 
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