Kbar finish repair

[Frozen Bear Trading]

Is this just paint? Got this at a paen shop for 15 bucks. Paint is all messed up

Worth fixing ? Or grind off all the black and mirror finish It?

Sharpen it and leave it alone?

Thoughts?

 

[knoefz]

That's just minor finish wear imho, I call them love marks and leave them on.
Happens to all black finished knives if you use 'm.

Here my BK7 for reference

I you dislike it.... grinding the black of is way too drastic, removes too much metal imho
Depending on the type of black coaring you can try panit stripper and hand sanding/ polishing after stripping. Maybe just the bevel and notbthe flats to get a fancy look.

Those teeth look very rounded btw, not sure how they look on new kabar knives, but getting those crisp and sharp again would worry me more than the black finish.

 

[bikerector]

Is this just paint? Got this at a paen shop for 15 bucks. Paint is all messed up

Worth fixing ? Or grind off all the black and mirror finish It?

Sharpen it and leave it alone?

Thoughts?

If you don't mind it, leave it. If you want to remove it, I recommend citristrip as a chemical stripper. Here's a before and after of a scrapyard 311 I did.

I also stripped all of these, accept for the middle one which I bought already stripped.

It's pretty easy to do. With the leather handle, it would probably be good to wrap that up for protection, but the synthetic handles (micarta, g10, rubbers) tend to hold up just fine to citristrip.

 

[Frozen Bear Trading]

That's just minor finish wear imho, I call them love marks and leave them on.
Happens to all black finished knives if you use 'm.

Here my BK7 for reference

I you dislike it.... grinding the black of is way too drastic, removes too much metal imho
Depending on the type of black coaring you can try panit stripper and hand sanding/ polishing after stripping. Maybe just the bevel and notbthe flats to get a fancy look.

Those teeth look very rounded btw, not sure how they look on new kabar knives, but getting those crisp and sharp again would worry me more than the black finish.

I could get all that black off with acid in a few minutes.

And no I havent sharpened it yet

 

[Frozen Bear Trading]

If you don't mind it, leave it. If you want to remove it, I recommend citristrip as a chemical stripper. Here's a before and after of a scrapyard 311 I did.

I also stripped all of these, accept for the middle one which I bought already stripped.

It's pretty easy to do. With the leather handle, it would probably be good to wrap that up for protection, but the synthetic handles (micarta, g10, rubbers) tend to hold up just fine to citristrip.

If you don't mind it, leave it. If you want to remove it, I recommend citristrip as a chemical stripper. Here's a before and after of a scrapyard 311 I did.

I also stripped all of these, accept for the middle one which I bought already stripped.

It's pretty easy to do. With the leather handle, it would probably be good to wrap that up for protection, but the synthetic handles (micarta, g10, rubbers) tend to hold up just fine to citristrip.

I have a brand new bottle of aircraft. Would that work

 

[bikerector]

I have a brand new bottle of aircraft. Would that work

I'm not familiar with that product, sorry.

 

[marcinek]

I could get all that black off with acid in a few minutes.

And no I havent sharpened it yet

OK. So what are you asking?

Can you get the coating off? You just told us.
Should you take the coating off? If you want to.
Should you leave it alone and just sharpen it? If you want to.
Should you put a mirror finish on it? If you want to.

Are you asking us about ways to increase its resale value?

 

[Steely_Gunz]

I think the Kabar knives look handsome with the paint stripped off. I used off the shelf paint stripper from a hardware store, and the stuff just wiped off. Any stubborn paint in the nooks I took off with the flathead screwdriver of a SAK. Just a bit of pressure and it peeled off.

 

[Yonose]

How is the handle? Is it leather or rubber? Either way, a great deal for $15. If left alone it would be fine as a user.

 

[SteelJunkee]

I think the Kabar knives look handsome with the paint stripped off. I used off the shelf paint stripper from a hardware store, and the stuff just wiped off. Any stubborn paint in the nooks I took off with the flathead screwdriver of a SAK. Just a bit of pressure and it peeled off.

Ka-Bar has near zero imperfections hidden under their coatings. A nice Patina is always more pleasant to look at than a wear-off "tactiscratched" coating. It would be great if they had a line of satin finished blades for their leather handle model line .

 

[GIRLYmann]

You know, after a couple of times of plunging the blade into sand
will sorta give it a distress finish...
But yeah, its a lot faster to run it over with an abrasive rotary device.

 

[SteelJunkee]

You know, after a couple of times of plunging the blade into sand
will sorta give it a distress finish...
But yeah, its a lot faster to run it over with an abrasive rotary device.

When I tried this on their new Epoxy coating, the blade heats up and the epoxy start to spread instead of been removed....
Heating the blades around 200f with a heat gun and used disposable razor blades did the trick.

I didn't thought paint stripper would be strong enough to do the job, but since Steely_Gunz mentioned it... I`m going to give it a try next time.

 

[Steely_Gunz]

Yep. The knife I did was a one year old 1271 Fighter with a kraton handle. I used Goof Off Pro Stripper that I most assuredly bought at Lowes. I think the can cost me around $14.

Took the finish off the blade, guard, and butt cap pretty easy. It did require a bit of scraping, but the finish on the Kabars is nowhere near like what you find on even Gerber knives. Tried the same thing with a Strongarm will much less success. The Kabar stripped pretty well 99% clean.

Epoxy stripping is addicting. When I did the Fighter I also did two Cold Steel Tomahawk heads as well an old Cold Steel Carbon V SRK blade I have been meaning to the handle for some time. I do prefer the look of bare steel over coated for sure.