High sheepsfoot

[pvicenzi]

Any reason to not grind down the kick to lower a too tall sheepsfoot blade on a stockman knife?

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I've done it with one of mine, a Queen #49 Cattle King. I had no issues at all. The potential pitfalls are a sunken spring for the lowered blade, or a nail nick ending up in an inconvenient position, hidden or blocked by another blade. There's generally little concern, with this particular blade, about the edge hitting the backspring inside. Most 'high' sheepsfoot blades have a lot of room below the edge. But make sure.

If you do grind the kick, make sure to do it very, very gradually, and watch for the backspring sinking as you go. If the knife is of quality build and there's little or no wear on the blade tang or the inside of the spring, there's a good chance the flat face of the blade tang itself will be in flush contact with the spring, and it will limit or even prevent the spring from sinking. I noticed this with my Queen; I ground about 1/16" of steel off the kick (it was very tall), and if the spring sunk at all, it was limited to about a hair's thickness. Figured out after the fact, the inside flat of the blade tang was flush against the spring (with the blade closed), which prevented the spring from dropping. Taking 1/16" off the kick dropped the spine of the sheepsfoot blade about 1/8", so it now is flush with the spine of the clip blade (which was my goal in doing so). If the knife is old, and has a lot of wear on the contact faces between the blade tang and the inside of the spring, that will contribute greatly to the spring dropping. On knives like that, the spring will likely have already dropped some, and might drop even more if the kick is ground down.

 

[pvicenzi]

Definately will go slow. I plan to use a coarse diamond pocket stone. Thanks for the tip on the spring. That is t thing I did not think about.