modifying production knives - blade grinding

[Muaddib1116]

I see a lot of modified blades on these forums (edge re-shaping, spine re-shaping, etc.), some with a lot of material removed. How is this done without ruining the heat treat? or do a lot of you guys just redo the HT sent-out/yourselves?

 

[RevDevil]

You have to know what you are doing to begin with. Those that are not mechanically inclined need not attempt for obvious reasons. The second thing is to go slow and have the right equipment as to not impact the heat treat. I highly doubt you would have a lot of people sending out production blades to be heat treated. That might cost more than the knife itself to begin with.

 

[wolf5391]

belt sander with higher grit, a steady hand and patience.

dip and cool the blade frequently and there wont be any issues with the heat treat.

If you see smoke dip immediately to be safe. Any coloring while grinding a ht'd blade is bad.

other than that make sure you try on a crap knife to start, don't ruin a good knife on the first attempt.

 

[ryxlyx]

I'll use a bench grinder for roughing spines, but e'thing else is handsanded. This a Warn 583-1 tanto, after flatsanding to a spearpoint:

This was my first attempt and as you can see I slopped high a bit, I've learned to be much more careful (and have done several since).