Customizing your Customs?! ...Let's hear your stories of perfectionism.

A

alan aragon

Joined
Dec 10, 2003
Messages
438
i just got done refinishing the blade of my duncan aftershock. i hand-rubbed through the stubborn, deep transverse grooves on the S30V hollow grinds first with 150, 250, 350, a really worn-out 350, and finally 1500-grit wet/dry.

i literally gave the hollow grinds the same longitudinal satin finish similar to that of a jerry hossom or walter brend custom, except the 1500 grit brought the grinds slightly closer to a mirror finish. i get a "steelie" just thinking about it ;).

trust me, i'm dying to post a pic of it, but i don't have a digicam yet -- i'm tempted to send the dang thing to one of you guys just so you can take some shots of it & post it for me!!

i also got rid of all of the very minor handle imperfections with the 350 grit, and i even bore down on some sections of the handle to improve the ergos. it took me 1.5-2hrs daily for about a week & a half to complete my finishing job of this already spectacular knife. i swear, the thing looks absolutely delicious now!

let's hear your stories of customizing your customs...
 
We all want to see it ......now
But seriously, I am under the impression that
S30V is difficult or impossible to get a really nice finish on.
Did you just use progressively finner grits are any other tricks.
I have a custom S30V bladed being made and am not sure exactly the finish I can expect.
 
Originally posted by Nosmo
We all want to see it ......now
But seriously, I am under the impression that
S30V is difficult or impossible to get a really nice finish on.
Did you just use progressively finner grits are any other tricks.
I have a custom S30V bladed being made and am not sure exactly the finish I can expect.
Click to expand...
i have quite an appreciation for the wear/abrasion resistance of S30V after rubbing the holy shit out of it for the past week & a half.. but nothing is impossible to finish nicely when it's hit with silicon carbide grit. infact, with a progression of finer grits, it's not that bad at all, and the end product is silky. it wasn't my intention to put a flat-out mirror finish on the blade, but i imagine that would take grits finer than 1500 plus some rubbing compound as well.

by the way, what blade have you ordered?
 
Originally posted by alan aragon


by the way, what blade have you ordered?
Click to expand...

Its my first knife in S30v and is a 'Hideaway'
from Mickey Yurco
mickeyyurco.jpg
 
Originally posted by alan aragon
let's hear your stories of customizing your customs...
Click to expand...



I just finnished a similar project, I was going to post a thread along the same lines but I thought I might get caled a heritic and be forever banned from knifedom.

I picked up a Robert Parrish boot knife from a seller on ebay, $85 bones! It had a double edged blade around 5 inches, Beadblasted, a cord wrapped handle. I liked the blade but nothing else but since it had a cord wrapped handle and the blade is flat ground I knew I could work with it.

First I stripped off the cord and reshaped the tang so it was just straight. I squared up the shoulders of the tang and then I went to work polishing out the blade. (I hate beadblast) I rubbed out the beadblast first with a machinist polishing stone I have. then 320, 400, 600 grit wet dry.

I made a brass handguard with some 5/8 x 3/4 brass and a handle out of some tan micarta.

The handle is about 7/8" wide at the guard and flares to a little over 1 1/16" at the but. There is a white spacer between the brass and micarta and a 1/8" brass pin in the middle of the handle that goes through a hole I drilled in the tang (solid carbide drills rock!)

For some reason I thought altering a custom blade might be concidered Heresey.

I wonder what Robert Parrish might think?


Drew
 
IMHO it might be easier just to send it back to the maker for further mods. It may cost a few $ but it seems a lot easier.
Although before I started making knives I did the same type of things to some of the blades I owned. Gives you a real sense of accomplishment when it turns out right.
You are just getting a small taste of the satisfaction a maker gets when he/she has finished a piece the are really proud of.
This is why Knife Making is so addictive and so much fun at the same time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top