Modify my Heavy Heart

Rescue Mike

Rescue Mike

Joined
Sep 5, 2006
Messages
1,342
OK.. So my Heavy Heart is NOT going to be a Safe Queen. I intend to use it, and use it HARD! :cool:

BACKGROUND:
I am headed (in 2 weeks) to a 4 day Aircrew Survival School, and will be taking my Baby with me and using it to build my shelter, split wood, etc. It is getting the nod, rather :eek: than my trusted Ratweiler! :grumpy:

MODIFICATIONS:
I want the birds beak on the butt GONE! (I emailed and called Garth, they said he'd call in 2 weeks, or February.) By flattening the butt, I can hammer (baton) the butt of the knife. With the birds beak, it makes this a little tough.

:confused: How can I do this and NOT mess up the temper? I assume a course file and hand grind it, yes? What "grit" should the file be? Any words of caution? Lessons learned? HELP?

Gracias (in advance) for the help! :)
 
I believe Jerry has said that INFI's heat treat can withstand temp's up to 900 degrees. I remember Blade last year, discussing this and that with him and Voracious. We were discussing a modification and he stated that the hotter infi gets, the harder it becomes. Darnedest thing. :confused:

I would imagine if you took it to a grinder, it would be okay. Just occasionally dunk it in water and you'll be fine. :)
 
A good rule of thumb with grinding steel (I believe) is if it gets too hot to handle, then dunk it in water. Obviously this means grinding without gloves. Start out with 60 grit (Aggressive) and then maybe do a 200 or 400 and then an 800 or so, depending on how high polished you want it to be :)
 
Maybe I'm just a total noob here... but does the temper of the butt of the knife matter that much? I guess if you were going to use it to hammer on really hard things, it might... Does the tempering affect corrosion resistance?
 
I think you will be very hard pressed to get that to a temperature where you need to be concerned about affecting the temper. I have also heard the 900 degree figure thrown around. It's good that you are trying to think ahead, but if that really is the temperature you need to get to to impact the temper, then short of taking a torch to it, I don't think you have to worry at all.
 
Would modding the HH in this manner have any affect on the warranty?

By-the-by, I was considering modding my HH to look kind of like the following quick edit, and was wondering the same thing Mike...

04.JPG
 
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Nice tactical sheath !!
 
Actually this isn't my knife -- just an image I grabbed off the "nothing but pics" thread to edit really quickly.

I'm thinking I might have to send the HH into Garth though b/c I'm not too sure how to get the Micarta off the blade, and even if I did know how, not sure I'd want to risk it...
 
If you're grinding near the micarta, it will get cooked long before the INFI. The "deflection temperature (°F) at 264 psi" (whatever that is) can be as low as 270 F and I think Skunk once reported "issues" when cooking micarta somewhat above boiling temperature.
 
JWBirch said:
give Bill Siegle a PM or email, he knows all about this kind of stuff.
Click to expand...

That's the best idea yet! I'll call the factory and find out what this is going to do to my warranty, hopefully nothing since I'm not touching the blade in any way.
 
It seems to me that a better "hammer" would be the spine about 2/3rds away from the butt. The same weight that makes it a good chopper should also make for a decent hammer. I've never felt comfortable hammering with the sharp end pointing at my face....
 
Rescue Mike said:
That's the best idea yet! I'll call the factory and find out what this is going to do to my warranty, hopefully nothing since I'm not touching the blade in any way.
Click to expand...

If Bill does it it won't affect the warranty in any way. In fact, if you do it right, it won't affect the warranty. I've used a dremel on knife steel, and got good results without ever getting hotter than I could touch. It just takes a few minutes. If you use bigger and/or better tools, just keep it hot to touch but not too hot to touch and you'll never have an issue, with performance or warranty. (careful you don't make it ugly though... knifeworking skills don't come in a mail order package!)
 
David E said:
It seems to me that a better "hammer" would be the spine about 2/3rds away from the butt. The same weight that makes it a good chopper should also make for a decent hammer. I've never felt comfortable hammering with the sharp end pointing at my face....
Click to expand...

No no no.. I am not using the knife to hammer, I am batoning the knife into wood to split it. It's a survival thing..

Although I guess I could hammer with the butt of the knife.. Hummmmm:cool:
 
That is the main reason I would not have my Busses without the skullcrusher. I can pound in a tent peg, pummel just about any wood to tinder and with the edge of the convex area of the butt on my HH I can strip bark and buff down knots, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I like mine the way it is. But, to each his own. Good luck on getting it like you want.:thumbup: ;)
 
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