Heat Stained SS Blade, Can It Be Polished?

R

radiobob

Joined
Dec 17, 2009
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Hi, Ok, I've got a Gerber Sportsman II with a Solingen blade I got from my dad before he passed. Someone heated the tip of the blade at some point till it turned blue, who knows, maybe they needed to cauterize a snake bite or something. Anyway, can this be polished out? Alternatively, I could live with coloring the whole blade blue. Any advice? Thanks!

Bob
 
Well to be honest they probably softened the tip of the knife when they heated it up so the tip won't get sharp any more but
If you have a drill get some jewelers rouge and a small buffing weel and buff it out.
 
9blades more or less hit this one on the head, unfortunately. If it's been heated to a colour change, the temper in that section of the blade has been lost. Buffing with flitz, semichrome or a dremel wheel will remove the blue easily enough, but the damage to the steel's crystal structure is unfortunately permanent (without re-tempering the entire blade, of course). That means that the segment of blade in question will never be able to hold an edge, and will roll and bend easily under load.
 
Ok, thanks for the replies, I kinda thought that might be the case, it's just the tip though so I guess not that big a deal. Too bad though.

Bob
 
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