Cold Steel "baked finish"....off

I

ichor

Joined
Aug 27, 2002
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I have CS Recon Scout and SKS knives. The black, "baked on" finish is starting to look pretty ragged on both. I never cared for this kind of finish, anyway, and now they look really ugly. Fully functional but aesthetically displeasing.

However, I like the performance of both knives, so my questions are:

How thick is this *epoxy*? finish?

How much time, elbow grease, pain and agony will it require to take the finish off and polish the blades. That is, satin or, heaven forbid, mirror finish?

What kind of abrasives, tools (hand or power) will I need? (I have time but few power tools).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

John in Boise
 
I think all you'll really need is some sand paper in diffrent grits and ALLOT of time :)
 
I kinda figured that, Bad Guy, but can you give me an idea of what grit we're talking about to remove the finish, initially, and how many times you have to jump another grit. Plus, what grit are we talking about for a satin or "mirror" finish?

One thing I forgot to mention. If, theoretically, I could just wave a magic wand and the finish would be gone, what would be the condition of the finish of the blade steel underneath? In other words, how much polishing is CS avoiding by applying the black coating. Will it be just a mess, or reasonably smooth? Novice questions, I know but I still want answers.

John in Boise
 
As far as what grit maybe some else can help you there. I can tell you that I recently used sand paper to remove the black finish off of this little custom utility that I picked up. And once the finish was gone I ran into allot of deep grind lines going up and down the blade. Although it gives it an antiqued look, not something I am sure your going for with a CS, I am going to have to take it over to another forum members house and put it to a grinder. I would not guess that you will experience this problem, but I wanted to give you a heads up. As far as me removing the finish off of it. I used a Black & Decker mouse sander and used the sand paper attachments it came with.
 
I just de-blackticled my Recon Scout.
There is a thread called "Nekkid Recon Scout" probably at the end of the summer IIRC.
There is a pic of the blade just after I used the paint stripper on it. It was a pretty smooth finish under there.
The epoxy coating came off like cold bacon fat from the pan :)
The stripper was called Zip a Strip or something like that, I believe that the can is in the photo.
nekkidRS.jpg

It took the better part of a Saturday...noon-1 till around 5:30 to get to 400 grit, another coupla evenings to get that 800 grit satin finish. The paint stripper was used on Friday night, about an hour there...

Go for it :D
Be warned, you won't stop at the first one!
Just remember to only sand in one direction North, North, North...
Not North, South, North, South.
And use a sanding block or chunk of heavy leather.
Go for it!!!
\
 
Most of the coating recomend being applied over a bead/sand blasted finish. A potential problem is sanding the joint between the blade and guard or handle. Besides that if you are willing to spend time and a bunch of sand paper it is not that hard to get to a hand rubbed satin finish. Use a sanding block to keep the planes level. Your hand is not flat. For a mirror finish you will need to go up to at least 1000 grit and then start with the buffing compounds and either way too much time or a buffer of some sort. All in all a good side project for nights spend hanging around.

WS
 
learned this from a friend and it works perfectly and best of all it is easy. there is a product called Rust Eraser it lookd pretty much like it sounds, you just rub off rust spot on metal with it, well if you use it on black finished blades it takes all the black off as fast as earasing a pencil mark or pretty close. What it leaves is a satin finished look on the blade with any imprints like say a Benchmade logo still there but in a mirrored kind of look. Try it i think it looks better than most of my stock blades come.
 
the finish is baked on teflon, not epoxy. if you want it off use 320, then 400 grit emery cloth, by hand!!! and it will be about an hour, hour and a half of work or so.
 
I am currently working on my crkt m-16 le. I just used what my dad had (started with 60 or 80 grit!) and switched to 220, I'm going to work up to at least 400.

Regards,
Steve
 
I really recommend using the paint stripper first.
The CS black coating just gums up the sandpaper in no time.
That didn't happen with my Parkarized Livesay however.
The finish underneath wasn't what I'd call beadblasted either...looked more like 400grit that turned color.
The handle/guard junction was tricky, as Insanity mentioned. I taped up the guard with duct tape and only had the sandpaper on the blade side of the sanding block, not wrapped around the block. Take your time and go slow.
Here it is done :)
RS800.jpg

Sheath by our own Normark. Top shelf too :D
 
Thanks for all the great advice, folks. Based on what I've read I think I'll start with a stripper of some kind. I have tried several different types of sandpaper and, as ebbtide mentioned, it gums up almost immediately. If I can get the finish off, it's just a matter of time, elbow grease and patience moving to finer and finer grit paper. I haven't be able to find that "Rust Eraser" locally. It's all over the net as Rust Eraser and "Miracle Eraser", but I don't want to order it unless necessary. Any suggestions for any particular brand of stripper for this "teflon" finish?

So, armed with info from all of you here are my concerns:

1. Someone advised "one direction". At first I thought he meant, not up and down and back and forth. No, he says, Not up and down or back and forth, but the SAME direction, that is all Up or all down or all back or all forth. So, the question is which. From guard to the point is of course easiest, but that's not going to work when I get to the guard where, obiviously going across the blade is the only way to get next to the guard effectively. I have also noticed that most knives, with a "satin" finish, appear to have been polished horizontally, across the blade. What direction is best? Across the blade starting at the spine and polishing to the cutting edge? Comments?

2. And what *about* the guard? On a Recon Scout is it brass or steel under that finish? If it's brass I might take a shot at polishing it too, since I like the look of shiny brass on a knife. Polish everything except the surface butting against the handle. Anyone know what it's made of?

Ebbtide, your knife blade looks like exactly what I have in mind. How fine was the final grit that you used to get that nice, lustrous satin finish?

And speaking of direction of sanding, what about a small, obital sander for the rough-stuff. Orbital sanders were invented to prevent directional sanding marks on wood. And it won't heat up the blade. Opinions?

Thanks in advance for advice.

John in Boise
 
Here's what I did...First, tin foil and duct tape over the handle and guard (to protect them from the stripper).
After the paint remover and putty knife scraping, I used 150 grit wet dry paper. I had a small scrap of wood for a sanding block and used plenty of WD40.
I started with the ricasso, the flat area where it sez 'Cold Steel'. I sanded that (with the wood block) from spine to edge, spine to edge only.
When that was shiney, I used the same (grit) paper wrapped around the edge of a bit of 9oz. leather and did the plunge grind. Again spine to edge only. This was the hardest part & had me worried a bit. But it evened out when the blade itself was done.
Next was the spine of the blade, from hilt/guard to point (only).
After the spine was was done it was time for the blade itself. From plunge grind to point (only...I know it is repetitve, but makes a huge difference later). Use your sanding block or leather or even a pink pearl eraser at all times or you will round of the grind lines.
OK, so now you have WD40 everywhere and a knife that isn't black anymore...
Repeat the entire process with 400 grit and then again with 600 and again with 800.
800 is where I stopped on mine. The final polish (the last 10 strokes, or so) was one with a fresh portion of sandpaper for each pass.
Don't be cheap with the sandpaper, when it stops cutting use a fresh bit. If you get scratches, go back to the grit before and get them out, then return to the higher one. The hardest part was putting the sandpaper (& block) down on the blade without scratching little fish hooks into it. It is a practice thing ;)
My buddy Bruce Evans has a tutorial on hand rubbing a blade here:
http://www.homestead.com/beknivessite2/guard.html
I don't have an orbital sander, so I can offer no advice there.
Have at it and show us some before and after pics :D
 
Wow, thanks Ebbtide! Your description of how you went about it and the Homestead webpage was just what I needed. Thanks everyone for all the tips.

John Dunn in Boise
 
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