I feel like I destroy every knife that I come in contact with!

G

GarageBoy

Joined
May 23, 2003
Messages
5,952
Ok, my first knife was a Gerber LST and it was used for sharpening practice. I scratched the surface shortly, so I took 220 grit sandpaper to it, thinking it would remove them. Well, it caused scratches on its own and as soon as I tried to sharpen it again, I hit the sides of the knife and scraped my new "finish". I was given a CRKT Crawford/Kasper. Well, the liner lock seems like its gonna wear through the tang soon. Now, I'm afraid to buy quality cutlery because I might screw it up.
::sigh
Any Ideas?
 
Its a little harder to screw up a good knife but keep useing the ones you got to practice.
 
The Kasper is supposed to be a fairly good knife, from what I've read here. If the lock wears out too soon, get in touch with CRKT, I bet they will make it right. Thats the real bonus to buying quality knives. Not only do they hold up better, but the manufacturer expects you to use them and stands behind their product.
As far as the finish, I don't have any knives that aren't scratched up, I use them. Its expected. The only way to keep a knife looking like new is to leave it in the box it came in.
I'm more impressed when somebody pulls out a knife thats razor sharp than a knife that has a shiny blade.
 
Thanks. One more thing, can I fix the finish of my LST even after I sanded it with 220 grit paper? I must have sharpened like 4mm off of the edge
 
I have:

Wrecked a SAK Explorer after trying to remove some scratches with a low grit sandpaper and now it has a tiny blade and a satin finish.

Wrecked a SAK Tinker similarly, and still didn't get the very deep scratches out.

ruined my Delica clip trying to remove the anodization.

caused a TON of blade play on my Gerber when I inertia'd it only 3 times or so.

I also dropped a keychain Wenger on a concrete floor causing a large chip to come out of one of the scales near the toothpick/tweezers.

Oi :rolleyes:

The moral:

Anodization will wear off anyway, and it can't do any harm being there partially after use, so leave it.

Scratches are character, sandpapering a mirror finish is stupdity.

My Gerber takes as much abuse as a vicious dog.
 
Any knife can be damaged, broken or destroyed. It just takes a sufficiently talented fool to do it. :)

As for repairing the finish, one must look to the professional knife makers and learn their technique. What I've learnt is that you need to work your way up the grit scale of sandpapers. Each successively smaller grit will take out the scratches formed by the previous grit. You can't straightaway go to the finest grit because then it would take forever to sand down the surface to the point where the original scratches are removed.

If starting from raw, begin with 100grit paper, move up the scale, 200, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1600. You may be able to skip every other grit. Sand very lightly and in a direction perpendicular to the prior scratch. So if the 100grit is sanded lengthwise along the blade, the 200 grit should be sanded across the blade, the 400grit will again be lengthwise along the blade.

Sand lightly and only enough to get rid of the previous scratches. By the time you reach 1600grit, you should have a satin finish. To reach mirror finish, you need aluminium oxide or similar, which comes in liquid suspension at about 3200 grit or 6400 grit. And finally finish off with jeweller's rouge.

It is a long and painstaking process and depending on how deep the initial scratch is, going through all that may leave you with a very small, very thin blade. So most users don't bother much with it.
 
After I had my LST scratched up pretty good, I sanded it with progressively finer sc sandpaper (120 to 3000 grit) and then used .5 micron chromium oxide film (about 9000 grit equivalent according to Lee Valley). I just stuck the paper to pieces of flat steel stock and plate glass and worked my way up through them, rubbing the blade back and forth flat against the paper.

Now it's got nearly a mirror finish. Shows finger prints real bad, but it looks much better than it did scratched.

Here's a quick picture I just took:
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/mdspencer/lst.html

Not exactly gorgeous, but not too bad, either.

Shalom,
Mark
 
I guess I'll stick with the semi-coarse finish. The brushed finish hides fingerprints well. How do I prevent further scratches during sharpening?
 
If you get some 320 grit paper and go over it again it will have the same brushed look only cleaner, not quite as coarse. Doesn't finger print too bad either.
As far as sharpening, its mostly practice. You could put a strip of masking tape on each side of the blade so it covers everthing but the edge. Can still get some minor scratches but they won't go clear up the blade.
 
You can prevent scratches by taping the blade (except for the edge). Also go slow and make sure you have the sharpening angle right. If the blade is getting scratched, you are letting the blade to stone angle drop too low. Try to follow the factory edge angle as close as possible. Put some magic marker on the edge to tell you if you are matching the existing angle, if the marker wears away evenly, then you have the angle right, if you wear away the back of the edge, your angle is too low, if only the front of the edge gets worn your angle is too steep.


If you use and sharpen your knives enough, you are bound to get scratches form time to time, and unless you really know what you are doing; it’s best to just leave them be.








- Frank
 
For the liner, as long as the lock up is solid its fine. If the liner is going all the way across the tang, its about worn out. Halfway or less is normal. Most linerlocks seem to wear pretty quick as you break them in. Then the liner stops and doesn't seem to wear at all for a long time.

As far as your knives looking abused....you could buy sturdier knives, or just not worry about it. Anything will get scratched or scuffed up. As long as it isn't broken, I don't see what the problem is for a daily carry.
 
garageboy, my knives all look abused (except for my lum chinese which is a safe queen). that's because I use them, and with use, I sharpen them up. Knives are meant to be used, unless you're a pure collector or re-selling figures strongly in your purchasing of knives.

At a shop I sometimes go to, I have seen owners brandishing knives which still had the factory edge, and they said that they were hard users. So you know it's macho posturing and a bluff.

My advice to avoid scratching the sides is:
(1) use painter's tape to tape up the sides
(2) sharpen slowly and lightly (it's better for keeping the angles right anyway)
(3) buy a cheap angle guide to start off with (like those from lee valley or something)
(4) don't rush the sharpening

happy holidays!
 
I've been sharpening for a while now and if I scratch a blade it will invariably be because I ran the knife off the end of the stone.
Just one more thing to watch out for :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top