Looking for some tip sharpening advice for my BK11, also a question about heat treat

Chalet

Chalet

Joined
Aug 23, 2013
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Of my knives, this Necker is the one I carry nearly every day. It sees use in hammering through wood, cutting various things from paper to hardwood and everything in between, and of course for opening bottles.

The other day I was splitting some cedar down with it and down in the cedar there was a nail that I didn't see and when I split it the very tip of my trusty BK11 hit the nail. I might not have even noticed but there was a spark!

It seems to have caused a very small chip/dulled section right near the tip. My question might be stupid, but I'm not nearly as knowledgeable about steel and heat treating and such as you guys are, so is it possible that the tip hitting the nail hurt the heat treat on my knife? I tried searching for some info, and my gut says no, and what I've found would seem to indicate no, but I didn't find anything conclusive. I know people spark ferro rods all the time off of knives, but that's softer than steel, and this hit a steel nail. Here are some pictures.

Now, the knife still has a reasonable tip on it, but if I wanted to touch up the tip just a little bit how should I go about doing that? Some wet/dry sand paper?

Thank you in advance.

The knife.


The tip.





With some friends.


Solo. I'm quite proud of the wear I've put on it. I was going to strip this one but I don't want to get rid of the wear, so one of the others will get stripped.
 
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The heat treat should still be fine.
The blade must reach a very high temperature to affect the HT.
The exact temperature I can't tell you. But I know it's very, very hot.

As far as sharpening the tip goes, any method of sharpening should be fine. Just be careful not to dull the very tip.
 
If you want to be really lazy and don't mind the increased angle you can just drop the point on the tip a little bit back to where it meets the blade edge = problem solved ;). I did that after snapping the tip off this buck-a-like.

WP_000817_zpsb626fc05.jpg
 
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you'd have to heat the edge to over ~450F before worrying about it. The coating would bubble off before that. :D
The spark is not an indicator of heat in the blade. Just sharpen it and watch out for more nails.

-E
 
Good news, everything is going to be fine. No worries about the HT at all, hitting a nail/throwing a spark isnt going to be ruin a HT. As far as fixing it, from what I see its really not all that bad, just looks dented other than chipped. All you have to do is sharpen it up, giving a little more attention to the tip. If you wanted to speed some things along you might just hit the tip with a file, or some carefully placed sandpaper until its back how it should look, then sharpen it up.

Good luck!
 
I went ahead and fixed the tip today. Also sharpened the knife up and started on the false edge a bit. After more thought I am going to strip this one and try to add some sort of patina.

Not the greatest picture quality but you can see the difference.




 
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