My Hinderer pimpage journey, You can do it too!

Tacticaltater

Tacticaltater

Joined
Oct 18, 2014
Messages
683
Hello my fellow bf brethren,
I would like to share/ show off lol my pimped Hinderer xm18 3.5 that i finished tonight.
I am not a knife maker/ pimper, just an average dude who wanted to try something new. If i can do it you can too.
Ive been looking at a lot of youtube videos and decided to try to anodize my hardware and such. I had ordered a cf scale recently and wanted to do everything all at once. So as i finished gathering all my materials i decided to do it tonight and i am pretty satisfied with the end results.
At first I had a plain jane spanto with green g10 that i got off the exchange.
First thing was I swapped the g10 for the cf then on to the fun stuff. I then heat ano'd the pivot screw, stand offs and the scale screws on my electric stove (stand offs came out good but the screws were alright, you can see in the pics. From far away though you cant tell.)
I then did the whole diy anodizing and did the liner purple.(its hard to see in pics) I wanted to do the lock side but was to scared with the detent ball and hole and also the lock face so i skipped that for now. However I do want to do more anodizing later on like the clip, lbs, etc.. but we'll see.
The hardest part was getting the pivot screw off because i didn't have the tool so i had to use nail clippers, 2 clippers actually because i broke the first one. Then i used a flat head with tape on it for the other side.
Well that's my story, for the most part it was kind of easy. If anyone wants to try this and has any questions you can leave it in the comments and ill try to answer it. Thank you for reading.

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A tip for the pivot: use a penny (or an equivalent coin made of a softer metal). You'll find that pennies, which are made of ~90% copper, won't damage the pivot because they're a soft metal. Taped flat heads work too, but they don't often fit well and there's the chance of slipping or the metal biting through the tape and dinging the titanium pivot.

I myself, like an idiot, bought the Hinderer armorer's tool. Wasted about $75 on that thing.
 
Looks great! Is that a Hinderer carbon fiber scale or aftermarket?
 
Looks good, I thought hinderer's came with stainless hardware? And in order to anodize you had to replace it with Titanium? Guess I was wrong??
 
I really wish people would quit using incorrect terms...anodizing ONLY refers to an electrical process. Heat coloring is a different process resulting in different color ranges. And yes, you can heat color steel but the resulting oxide layer is MUCH less durable than the oxides on titanium formed by heat or anodizing.

~Chip
 
WValtakis said:
I really wish people would quit using incorrect terms...anodizing ONLY refers to an electrical process. Heat coloring is a different process resulting in different color ranges. And yes, you can heat color steel but the resulting oxide layer is MUCH less durable than the oxides on titanium formed by heat or anodizing.

~Chip
Click to expand...

Hence the quotation marks.
 
its the hinderer carbon fiber scale. i forgot the add, when i first got this scale it was pretty dule and looked like black g10 sometimes. so i got some tooth paste and rubbed it all over and then used alittle of my turtle wax after to get it to shine a bit better.
 
I'm hoping to find time this year to try my hand at anodizing Ti and maybe some leatherwork ...

but I enjoy being able to personalize my Hinderers too ... congrats on giving it your personal touch ... :thumbsup:

I think it always gives a sense of connection to a knife to personalize it a bit ...
 
OP - nicely done:thumbsup:

For those who like disassembling/tinkering their Hinderers but do not want to spend $75 on the tool, just buy an irwin #14 spanner bit (just a few bucks). It fits perfectly on gen 4 xm-18 3.5 (not sure about other models/gens).
 
Lance Leon said:
A tip for the pivot: use a penny (or an equivalent coin made of a softer metal). You'll find that pennies, which are made of ~90% copper, won't damage the pivot because they're a soft metal. Taped flat heads work too, but they don't often fit well and there's the chance of slipping or the metal biting through the tape and dinging the titanium pivot.

I myself, like an idiot, bought the Hinderer armorer's tool. Wasted about $75 on that thing.
Click to expand...


After 1973, Pennies have been over 90% zinc.
 
The coin sounds like a good idea. I found that even if you do find something that fits into the backside of the pivot screw it’s still hard to get a solid grip making the whole thing a pain. I used a 6 inch screwdriver too which also didn’t help. That damn disassembly tool should be included with the knife or atleast make it cheaper. Seems so greedy.
 
W. Anderson said:
After 1973, Pennies have been over 90% zinc.
Click to expand...
You're probably right. I don't live in the US, so I'm just going off of what I've seen. But you should be able to find an equivalent coin for the job.
Tacticaltater said:
The coin sounds like a good idea. I found that even if you do find something that fits into the backside of the pivot screw it’s still hard to get a solid grip making the whole thing a pain. I used a 6 inch screwdriver too which also didn’t help. That damn disassembly tool should be included with the knife or atleast make it cheaper. Seems so greedy.
Click to expand...
I saw that Nick Shabazz filed down a penny to have a slot of the screw that sticks up on the lock side, and that worked pretty well. You could try that. I do agree about the tool though.
 
hey guys i want to show what i did with the clip and filler tab. I did blue and bronze/yellowish. The yellow is alittle hard to see or maybe its my lighting.
I might do it over, now that i look at it i wish there were more purples. I dont have anything to remove the ano so ill have to wait til another day.

75dyxX7.jpg
 
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Tacticaltater said:
The coin sounds like a good idea. I found that even if you do find something that fits into the backside of the pivot screw it’s still hard to get a solid grip making the whole thing a pain. I used a 6 inch screwdriver too which also didn’t help. That damn disassembly tool should be included with the knife or atleast make it cheaper. Seems so greedy.
Click to expand...

I agree. Somebody on an old Hinderer thread I saw said something along the lines of "Hey, these knives are already expensive, you shouldn't be trying to cheap out on the tool!" What a load of garbage. This tool should have been included, or at the very least, should have been designed to be inexpensive. I don't understand the idea that tools for a pocket knife need to be ultra compact. "So you can have it on you!" Ha, for what?? If your knife is so poorly made that you need to carry a tool with you to make adjustments throughout the day, that's a crap knife. End of story.

I was able to easily disassemble the pivot on my Hinderers with two flat-head screwdrivers. Pretty easy.
 
It would bring your xm to a new level if you get that lock side to match the purple on the liner. But awesome job so far!
 
Ya I want to do the lockside so bad but I’m afraid of the lock face, detent ball and the hole. I know people say to use nail polish but I’m not sure, Dont have the confidence yet Lol. I wish I could experiment with something else but my Hinderer is the only titanium I have haha.
 
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