PM2 tip

[blanex1]

well the unthinkable happened! i dropped my PM2 on some concrete and of all things landed on its tip!oh no it couldn't have landed on the but of the knife!my question is what would be the easy way to bring back its needle point! its not like a brake or chip,it blunted at its tip,i'm so mad at myself! i could cry about thisthought i would just ask hear,thank you.

 

[Nfd538]

Do you have any sharpening equipment? I've brought back a kitchen knife that had the tip broken off with an Edge Pro.

 

[grizzled gizzard]

No big deal. Just one thing.

Don't be afraid to remove steel from the spine. It's probably the fastest way to make a blade pointy.

If you just remove steel from the edge, you'll have to remove more steel. It's also a great way to get a rounded point.

 

[blanex1]

Do you have any sharpening equipment? I've brought back a kitchen knife that had the tip broken off with an Edge Pro.

yes i do,i have both the edge pro and a sharpmaker,but i didn't quite no where to remove mettle from! working it down from the spine seems like the best way!i didn't even think of that!do i just use a DMT diamond plate and lay the blade flat on its spine and work it down from there!until the tip starts to point up again.

 

[bgentry]

Post a picture of the tip and we can recommend how to proceed. Usually the edge is the right part of sharpen to restore the tip, but the spine can be correct also. The big problem with spine side "repointing" is that you can easily change the position of the actual point on the tip. Spine side repointing tends to move the point away from the spine.

Sometimes both methods are needed to restore the point properly. Again, a picture will help a lot.

Brian.

 

[stompbox64]

No big deal. Just one thing.

Don't be afraid to remove steel from the spine. It's probably the fastest way to make a blade pointy.

If you just remove steel from the edge, you'll have to remove more steel. It's also a great way to get a rounded point.

^^ THIS... next thing you know, you'll start a trend of Drop Point PM2's...

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

The PM, PM2 and similar knives like the Military should be dead-simple to re-point a blunted or rounded tip from the spine side, because the spine is dead-flat & straight already, all the way back to above the 'hole' in the blade. On this knife with just the light blunting of the tip, laying the spine flush to a stone while doing so is a no-brainer, and will take care of the tip. I did the same with an older Spyderco PM (in CPM-D2) of mine, and it's very stable and simple grinding. Save the thinner steel near the edge for cutting stuff instead; that's what it's there for (thinner steel = better cutting geometry). No need to waste it in making the tip pointy again.


David

 

[bgentry]

The PM, PM2 and similar knives like the Military should be dead-simple to re-point a blunted or rounded tip from the spine side, because the spine is dead-flat & straight already, all the way back to above the 'hole' in the blade.

Just to explain my position on this a little further: When grinding on the spine side to restore a point, the overwhleming tendency is to not grind fully parallel to the spine. Grinding a huge portion of the spine all at once takes a lot of time and most people trying to restore a point won't do that; it's too slow.

So most people grind on just the part of the spine near the point, effectively creating a secondary angle near the end of the spine. This grinding changes the orientation and position of the point itself. It can be really minor, or rather noticeable, depending on the blade shape and how much grinding is done.

No big deal either way; just sharing what I've observed.

Brian.

 

[exracr]

This thread is worthless..... WITHOUT PICS!

 

[blanex1]

sorry i should have uploaded these sooner![URL=http://s1157.photobucket.com/user/blanex1/media/_MG_7250.jpg.html][/URL][URL=http://s1157.photobucket.com/user/blanex1/media/_MG_7251.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[cbwx34]

For damage that small I wouldn't bother with the spine side... just give it a decent sharpening, and when you're done, I'm betting your tip will be back with no extra effort.

If you don't want to sharpen it, follow OwE's advice... lay the spine flat on a medium stone (you could probably do it on the medium Sharpmaker stone), and bring it back that way. You can slightly raise the spine so that the stone favors the tip area, or just apply pressure (via the handle) so it favors the tip (hope that makes sense).

Either way, shouldn't take long, so check often as you go... don't want to overdue it.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Just to explain my position on this a little further: When grinding on the spine side to restore a point, the overwhleming tendency is to not grind fully parallel to the spine. Grinding a huge portion of the spine all at once takes a lot of time and most people trying to restore a point won't do that; it's too slow.

So most people grind on just the part of the spine near the point, effectively creating a secondary angle near the end of the spine. This grinding changes the orientation and position of the point itself. It can be really minor, or rather noticeable, depending on the blade shape and how much grinding is done.

No big deal either way; just sharing what I've observed.

Brian.

If there were more damage to the tip, i.e., if a sizeable piece were broken off, I'd tend to agree (or maybe not, the more I think about it*). But in this particular case, it's easier to fix from the spine side with an appropriate stone, like a coarse diamond plate or the coarse side of a SiC stone, or a sheet of hard-backed wet/dry sandpaper (220-320 grit). And no worries about having to regrind a cutting edge which may already be sharp and in good condition. I fixed the tip on my PM with maybe 20 minutes' worth of easy & steady tip-trailing passes on the spine, using 6" x 2" SiC stone (Norton Economy). Fixing this sort of small damage is EASY. The flat, wide and straight spine makes it so; it's basically a built-in angle guide for the task. And saving the better-cutting thin steel at the edge is well worth the little time spent. And down the road, so long as one pays regular attention to the condition of the tip, it's also very easy to maintain the pointiness of the tip in the same manner, with just a few passes as needed. The additional upside is, it'll still continue to look like the original factory grind, if done with some patience. The spine stays straight & flat, and the edge profile remains unaltered.

* Speaking only of my personal preference (to each his own), I'll almost always grind from the spine side anyway, even in fixing bigger tip damage, like a broken tip. If it alters the overall profile of the tip (and it's broken, so it's already altered), or takes longer to get it done, so be it. When the work is done, it'll still be a better cutter in having saved the thinner steel near the edge. And depending on the particular knife, another risk in grinding from the cutting edge up to the spine is in creating a higher point on the tip that might not nestle into the handle of a folding knife anymore and protrudes above the handle. Often, the 'fix' for that then becomes removing the protruding portion by grinding down from the spine anyway, until the whole of the tip and the cutting edge are fully within the handle again.


David

 

[mdprice55]

I did the same thing to my PM2. Dropped in the sink and landed perfectly on the tip. It's not too bad, just a little blunted. Since it has a dlc coating, I guess my only option is to resharpen.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

I did the same thing to my PM2. Dropped in the sink and landed perfectly on the tip. It's not too bad, just a little blunted. Since it has a dlc coating, I guess my only option is to resharpen.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

If you're only concerned about the DLC finish being marred or removed by regrinding, that's understandable. Otherwise, a diamond hone could handle regrinding from the spine side, if you'd prefer to do it that way.


David

 

[mdprice55]

If you're only concerned about the DLC finish being marred or removed by regrinding, that's understandable. Otherwise, a diamond hone could handle regrinding from the spine side, if you'd prefer to do it that way.


David

Yeah, my concern would be removing the coating.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[cbwx34]

If there were more damage to the tip, i.e., if a sizeable piece were broken off, I'd tend to agree (or maybe not, the more I think about it*). But in this particular case, it's easier to fix from the spine side with an appropriate stone, like a coarse diamond plate or the coarse side of a SiC stone, or a sheet of hard-backed wet/dry sandpaper (220-320 grit). And no worries about having to regrind a cutting edge which may already be sharp and in good condition. I fixed the tip on my PM with maybe 20 minutes' worth of easy & steady tip-trailing passes on the spine, using 6" x 2" SiC stone (Norton Economy). Fixing this sort of small damage is EASY. The flat, wide and straight spine makes it so; it's basically a built-in angle guide for the task. And saving the better-cutting thin steel at the edge is well worth the little time spent. And down the road, so long as one pays regular attention to the condition of the tip, it's also very easy to maintain the pointiness of the tip in the same manner, with just a few passes as needed. The additional upside is, it'll still continue to look like the original factory grind, if done with some patience. The spine stays straight & flat, and the edge profile remains unaltered.

* Speaking only of my personal preference (to each his own), I'll almost always grind from the spine side anyway, even in fixing bigger tip damage, like a broken tip. If it alters the overall profile of the tip (and it's broken, so it's already altered), or takes longer to get it done, so be it. When the work is done, it'll still be a better cutter in having saved the thinner steel near the edge. And depending on the particular knife, another risk in grinding from the cutting edge up to the spine is in creating a higher point on the tip that might not nestle into the handle of a folding knife anymore and protrudes above the handle. Often, the 'fix' for that then becomes removing the protruding portion by grinding down from the spine anyway, until the whole of the tip and the cutting edge are fully within the handle again.


David

I'm beginning to think you should call yourself, 'Obsessed with Tips'

I used to say "always repair spine side". But after making a few repairs... every knife is different, and also you can repair in different ways for different results. I've showed this before... I used to buy broken knives to practice on. Here's a couple of Leeks repaired (top: no repair / middle: from the edge / bottom: from the spine)

Depending on the knife and the desired result, as you can see, it can be done a number of ways. In the above example, an edge repair more closely matches the original knife, while the spine 'fix' gave it a whole new look. In the case of the OP, it's such a small repair, it shouldn't matter either way. He could do it from the edge, making the tip a little stronger, from the spine to keep it thin, etc. If it were a bigger break, and he wanted to try and re-establish the "needle point" desired, it might help to do a little on both sides.

Bottom line, no real rules (well one is, don't grind so that the tip sticks out on a folding knife when closed)... with bigger damage, draw on the knife, see what it would look like, and then grind it however you want. Like I said before, a good sharpening should erase most of this without much hassle... finish it spine side if needed.

 

[Basp2005]

Here is an example of a spyderco with a substantial amount of material removed from the spine.

 

[Obsessed with Edges]

Just finished repairing a broken tip on a ZDP-189 Leek I'd been sitting on for a while. Quite some time back, I'd rebevelled it to a very acute edge; probably a little too acute, as it turns out. Immediately upon finishing that work on a DMT hone, I managed to snap about 1/16" of the tip off while STROPPING it; the tip dug in on the strop, and it broke as easily as the tip on a freshly sharpened pencil.

Fast-forward to today. I had an idea to to use a makeshift 'hone' I'd constructed previously with a 3" x 21" sanding belt (120 grit 'Zirconia Alumina'). I'd picked up the belt at Sears a while back, cut it at the seam and glued it flat to a 3" X 24" board of basswood. I had previously used this rig to reshape the spey blade on a Buck 301 folder (420HC) into a spearpoint tip, by simply laying the board across my lap and grinding the forward end of the spine with trailing strokes along it's length (21"). That job took maybe 45 minutes to an hour or so. Today, I decided to employ the same method on the ZDP-189 Leek.

A total of 20 minutes' work (yes, I actually timed it) took the broken tip from this:


to this:

It went even faster than I assumed it would, and I think the new tip is actually pointier than the previous one. Now I can start worrying about breaking it again.


David

 

[blanex1]

so hears the good news.i ended up sharpening on my edgepro working on the edge to tip,and got it looking like new(like factory)point again,thanks guys,i notice i'm not the only one who drops there knifes! point down.