HRLM Modifications

1

1whitefoot

Joined
Sep 24, 2005
Messages
835
Here is my HRLM rendition.


Shortly after getting the knife I decided to open up the choil some,
HRLM001-2.jpg

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After using for awhile,
I took off some more of the choil and rounded off the thumb bump a little,
myknives181copy1.jpg

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I also polished up the Canvas Micarta some, not quite as grippy but I like the look and feel better.

I used a dremal with a drum sander for the metal and a polishing wheel stone for the handle.

Just a little more finishing an that's all I'll do to it.
For me, it's now just right and really feels good when using.

I must say that I'm very satisfied with this knife. :thumbup:


edit;

Well, I had to do a little more...

Stripped the coating,
deepened the scale grooves, very grippy now.
thinned the edge,
a little more off the thumb bump,
and got the choil area to where it's just the way I like it.

Been using it quite a bit and it performs most excellent for a mid size knife.
Really carves the wood.

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That looks nice! :thumbup:

I'll bet it does feel good - like a "melted" 1911. :cool:
 
Whitefoot, what did you use to polish up the handle like that, mine looks a rather lightish green, but the handle looks amazing when its soaking wet. Maybe its just the pictures:confused:
 
If you mean in the pic where the blade coating is still on,
I used a dremel polishing stone wheel to take off most all them canvas threads sticking out.
The black resin part shines pretty easily without the threads.

after using for awhile, I found it a little too slippery when using when my hands got greasy...:(
So I took a round rasp file and deepened the grooves which made the ridges more pronounced and tore up the threads some.
 
1whitefoot said:
after using for awhile, I found it a little too slippery when using when my hands got greasy...:(
So I took a round rasp file and deepened the grooves which made the ridges more pronounced and tore up the threads some.
Click to expand...

i was washing mine off and i notice how nicely the color darkened up but it did feel more slick as you said. i may just try to deepen up the grooves and see how that does when wet then sand the whole baby down with the polishing stone
 
Ha cool, I just took the dremel to my HRLM tonight. What a difference. I think I'm still going to take a little more off though. I'd like to bevel and round the choil edges too.

afi.sized.jpg
 
You guys have me thinking now. I just picked up a HRLM, and after handling the knife for a couple of weeks can see where this would be a worthwhile mod. It's a great knife, one I plan on keeping so resale value isn't relevant. How much attention should I pay to heat? I definitely do not want to do anything that might affect adversely affect the blade.
 
Modifying the choil on the HRLM is definately a worthy modification IMO.

Personally, I would enlarge the choil towards the handle more to bring the choil in closer without taking much away from the blade edge. You can slightly taper or reshape the micarta on the choile side a little too to help bring the choil more in towards the handle (if you want).

You might also want to just barely dull the sharp edge next to the choil - some people do - some don't.
I have never cut myself on the blade edge near a choil, but the thought has crossed my mind.


I have heard Eric mention to be VERY careful not to over-heat the blade with a dremmel.
Dremmel spin at such a high speed that I think they can create a very hot spot at a very small area.

That said, this modification pretty much requires a Dremmel or I have a drum sanding kit with various sized drums I got from Sears that I put into my drill press. You could use a regular drill, but regular drills aren't very condusive to "handling" for this type of sanding....

*** I have found that if you have a lot of material to remove and when you are trying to actually "Shape" and do similar to steel, you will have much better luck using the COARSER grits. The coarse grit removes more material faster and creates much less heat.

The ability to use a drill press really frees up your hands and give you more control. :thumbup:

The Dremmel still comes in handy for very small detail work. I think the Dremmel is a great tool (for detail work), but I think a lot of people try to use it to do tasks that are much better suited for larger and more heavy duty tools.

My brother-in-law (typical Brother-in-law story) tried to use his Dremmel to cut a heavy duty 5" heavy steel round basketball post in half. He spent over an hour grinding on it and couldn't cut it. .... He made a nice thin cut all around it that didn't get through. :rolleyes:

He asked for my help and I brought over my Angle Grinder *With an appropriate grinding wheel and we cut it in about 7-8 minutes.

When you use a finer grit, there is a tendency to push and hold for much longer periods to get material removal and you are creating much more heat.

You can always come back with the finer grits to polish up a little after you get the basic shape.

With a Dremmel, you probably just want to touch for a few seconds and remove for a few seconds. ???? You get a feel for it after a while. Just feel the area you are grinding with your hands. If it gets too hot to hold, let it cool or dip in water to help cool.

I posed a question to Mike Stewart (from Bark River) once about how to avoid over-heating a blade when grinding and how to know.

He replied with:

"The tempering Temperature of most of the Steels we use are in excess of 400 degrees.

Note that all blades are ground with Bare hands.

If you can hold it--it Ain't that hot.

You can grind the heck out of a blade without any damage.

We dip the blade in water after every pass on the grinder so they never get that hot.

There is really no need for ice water but if someone wanted to -- there would be no damage from it.

You also can tell by color.

If you have not turned the blade Blue--You have not damaged it.

Before you get to Blue--You have to go through all the Straw ,Yellow and Gold colors."

.
 
I have a drill press, that would seem to be the tool of choice for this task; it would definitely help in keeping everything squared up. Also have a couple of Dremels and several different grinding wheels- I think there is even a sanding drum or two for it. Staying to the handle side would seem to make the most sense. I like the blade size and really do not want to remove any more of the edge than necessary.

I wished they made a few more of these knives with uncoated finishes; an uncoated HRLM in INFI with a blade around .15 thick would be awesome.
 
A drill press would be nice for keeping things square.

A dremel works just fine, I used to do all my work by hand, using a power tool sure saves a lot of labor when your removing material.

I prefer the sanding drums for this type of work, coarse then finishing with the 240 grit drum.

The grinding stones jump around more than I like.

Don't have any problem with overheating, you have to really work at it to heat it up enough to hurt.
This kinda work, you do a little at a time then use it for awhile then do a little more till you get it where it's just right.

An yeah I agree about bringing the choil back and saving the edge.
Never been a big fan of choils...:thumbdn:

I took a lot of the guard off cause it just got in the way for me, yet there is still enough left for safety when you have a regular grip.
Now I can choke up on the edge.

I like a naked blade so I stripped the coating, hit it with a scatch pad, then a little white vinegar to start the patina.
The SR101 holds a pretty sharp edge when you get your angles right for the intended use.

There is not anything pretty about it now, just pure user...:thumbup:
It's my knife and I'm not gonna sell it so I can change it to where where I want it...:D
I really like this knife, it's tough and strong yet can be used for woodcrafting.

Swamprat hit a home run with this design.
(just a little modding needed to personalize it, ain't another one like it out there...;))
 
I like what you've done to your knife, and especially that you were willing to take a little bit of a chance in doing it (assuming you don't do tis stuff everyday).

I have been thinking about adding thumb notches to mine, but in the back of my mind, I keep thinking about "stress risers". Maybe I am worrying about nothing--even if thumb notches were added and they did create stress risers, would the knife be weaker to the point that it would ever break in use??? I don't know.

Anybody else have any thoughts on this?
 
Good idea.
I was thinking about putting a few notches on it.
I don't think it would adversely affect it.

But I would hate to get them crooked.
 
Stress risers are abrupt changes in cross-section.

One common offender is the plunge grind at the Ricasso.

The Steel Heart II and most newer Busses fixed that with a radiused plunge cut (but the ergo's didn't get this radius). The Choil helps also, the transition from blade to tang is made in a thicker area because the choil removes the thin part of the edge at the plunge cut.

Thumb notches on the spine are pretty safe. First, the spine is thick and strong so a crack is unlikely to start there. To reduce the risk, make sure the notch is smooth at the botom. You want this: UUUUU, not this: VVVVV.

Lastly, a stress riser is just a location where cracks might propogate. If there is no stress, there will be no cracks, stress risers on a pommel won't have any negative effect because a pommel never sees any bending stress.
 
Hogwash said:
Stress risers are abrupt changes in cross-section.

One common offender is the plunge grind at the Ricasso.

The Steel Heart II and most newer Busses fixed that with a radiused plunge cut (but the ergo's didn't get this radius). The Choil helps also, the transition from blade to tang is made in a thicker area because the choil removes the thin part of the edge at the plunge cut.

Thumb notches on the spine are pretty safe. First, the spine is thick and strong so a crack is unlikely to start there. To reduce the risk, make sure the notch is smooth at the botom. You want this: UUUUU, not this: VVVVV.

Lastly, a stress riser is just a location where cracks might propogate. If there is no stress, there will be no cracks, stress risers on a pommel won't have any negative effect because a pommel never sees any bending stress.
Click to expand...

What about a |_| shape? Just a guess, but I think that would be in between the U and V shape you mentioned, and probably the shape I'd do. As far as stress along the spine, I agree that cutting isn't going to cause it, but what about batoning or prying? Do you think either of those would cause an issue?
 
A radius is the next best thing to a plain spine.

Your |_| is just two small stress risers instead of V which is one big stress riser.

I don't think Batoning would cause a problem, but prying might.

I would try to eliminate any stress riser I can.

On the other hand, I have never heard of a BMe failing at the plunge cut but radiusing the plunge was a specific request that I made when Ban fixed up my EU-17 Magnum:

EU17crop.jpg


Does it make a difference? I don't think I'll ever know but I'm glad it's radiused.
 
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