Active Verb, if you want to do it with a Dremel, here's my method.
Figure out a design that will get you under 2.5", that you can live with the looks of, that involves cutting
one new line from the spine to the edge. The line can be very shallow and make the new blade look the the Turkish Clip pattern from a trapper, be very steep and make the blade look a lot like a wharncliffe, or be inbetween, which will look kind of Bowie-ish.
Lay that line out on the blade - scribe it, Sharpie it, use layout blue - whatever you've got. Scribed is best, if you can, and scribed on layout fluid is the very best.
Now put a cut-off wheel on your Dremel. You can use one of the big, thick reinforced ones if you want, but the regular cheap little thin ones will cut better and cooler. The thin ones may break if you don't have the hang of babying them, but they're cheap as hell - what, about five bucks for a tube of fifty?
Here's one the best parts about doing with a cut-off wheel. It's easy to rig up a setup that will make it almost impossible to mess up your temper.
If you were thinking of doing this yourself, I'm guessing you've got a shop space of some kind that you can make a mess in. Good, because you will.
Clamp the blade down onto a scrap of wood (or whatever - something long enough you can clamp it to your bench or table or workmate)
with a layer of something absorbent and heat friendly under it. An old washcloth or shop towel, a really old cotton sock, or even just six or eight layers of paper towel. Get a container of water and keep it nearby.
This will all be easier if you've popped the blade out and removed the thumbstuds, but you can do it without disassembly if you want.
Make sure you can see your marked line, and that your clamp or clamps won't interfere with where you'll have the Dremel as you cut. Now pour a cup or so of water on your assembly - you want to completely soak that absorbent layer.
That's it. Start cutting - cutting one long shallow line then going back and cutting back and forth until you get through will tend to break less cutoff wheels than just starting at one side and cutting your way across (all the way through) in one long cut, but both work.
To clean up the surface of your new spine, the sanding bands on expanding rubber drums work MUCH better than the mounted hard stones.
You can absolutely do it yourself, for free (well, the cost of abrasives
) and get it just the way you want it.
The only real problem is, once you've done this sort of thing once, you start wanting to do it again, then you want more tools, then you want to start making your own knives, and then, well, you're lost.
I encourage you to think about doing this on your own (or with a buddy), it will give you a new appreciation for how hard - and how easy - it is to tweak a knife and make it your own.
