Need some advice on altering a Damascus blade or finding someone to do it

[Will Batayte]

Ok so out of curiosity I ordered a couple Damascus Bowies from poshland knives. They were very cheap but for the price I was happy with what I got to an extent. The Damascus is quite beautiful and is supposed to be leaf spring steel (kinda like Himalayan imports. The knives do seem to be well made and sturdy. Here's the issue on one the grind is messed up. It doesn't look bad or anything but it is a convex grind and the guy who did it got it perfect near the plunge but it actually gets slightly thicker near the tip. Even though it's still very well balanced. The balance point is just beyond the guard. Nonetheless this is supposed to be a fighting Bowie so I want to have the tip area thinner or at the very least have the grind consistent throughout. I also want to drop the clip down say half an inch then re do the swedge leaving it with a good fully sharpened clip and a more abrupt point. From the picture if you look close you can see that the grind goes from almost flat near the hilt to quite convex near the tip. What I need to know is can I just work this steel like it was regular steel and not ruin the pattern? Will I have to acid etch it? I've never done anything like this on Damascus. Quite frankly it's a 60 dollar knife so I wouldn't be out much but like I said even though it was super cheap I do like it and don't want to ruin it. I have a kmg grinder so I can do what I want but I am not by any means a great grinder. Backing up the clip and re doing a swedge would be cake but I am not sure I can fix the other issue. Any advice? Or is there anyone who could do these mods leaving it looking perfect at the end for a reasonable price. https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...26808.100003271618522&source=48&ref=bookmarks

 

[Frank Niro]

That Damascus is probable crap to tell the truth. To "fix it up" as you wish means someone making a new knife for you -- well just about anyway. Ask someone here to make a new one for you as you wish. - By the way that won't be me. Now there it is. Sharp and pointy.
Frank

 

[Kevin McGovern]

Grind away. You can't ruin it.

 

[A.McPherson]

You can modify it, it won't ruin the pattern, just change it. If you do decide to reshape it, just go slow and dip in water after every pass. When you are finished, you'll have to etch it to bring the pattern back out.
If you grind too much, too fast you'll build up heat in the blade and ruin what ever heat treating they did on the blade.

 

[milkbaby]

I've seen that brand knife on ebay and an 99% sure they are cheap Pakistani or Indian damascus knives. They claim it's 1095/15N20 damascus steel at HRc 57-60 hardness, but a quick Google finds some evidence the hardness possibly isn't that high, could be batch to batch variation in heat treat. At those prices, their QC may not be a priority.

Just grind it like any other knife post heat treat, i.e. keep it cool. The tip is the thinnest part and easiest to overheat and burn out the heat treat. It could also possibly warp depending... You'll need to re-etch the damascus pattern as it'll disappear from wherever you ground it away. Might be an issue getting an even appearance if you try to spot etch just the part you ground and/or you didn't finish the entire blade to the same finishing grit.