Reprofiling USAF Survival Knife

[Burncycle]

I have an old USAF Survival knife (Still think the sheath's are flat out awesome) and it was cheap enough I'm willing to play around with it and not get too bent out of shape if I ruin it.

I assume it had a convex edge, and it definitely isn't a cutter -- even though it was sharp, the blade quickly becomes so thick that you have to be more orthogonal to the surface you're trying to cut vs. a thinner knife (not great for shaving bits of wood, etc). This might be an advantage if I were to baton wood but that's about it. In an effort to change this, I wanted to re profile the edge to more of a scandi grind (or even a mild hollow grind) to make it a bit more useful as a woods knife.

Now I know there are better knives out there for woods work, and many of those are even reasonably priced (Mora, etc) but this is what I've got so I'd like to see what I can do with it. Has anyone ever reprofiled one of these, is it worth the effort? Unfortunately I don't have the tools that would make this work easier -- I need to pick up a belt sander one of these days. Until then I have a dremel, files, diamond stones and ceramic stones. Seems like it's going to take a LOT of time!

Regards

 

[RABCarver]

Good idea, and good luck. They are some of the best knives for the money. I bought mine new for $35. If you have the time, go for it. If it's usable, it's worth the effort. I've reprofiled a couple very old Boker and Camillus folders that were badly beaten. I've been thinking about reprofiling my AFSK as well. Flattening the swedge, deleting the guard near the spine (to allow for a better grip and thumb placement on the spine) and moding the tip. Just haven't had enough free time to commit to it.

If you go through with it, post some pics.

 

[Komitadjie]

Without a power tool that's going to take a while, but is entirely do-able! Grab the coarsest diamond stone you've got and go at it.

Either that, or hit up a buddy with a belt grinder / sander and have 'em do a quick profile on it that you can sharpen up with the bulk of the material removed. Another good option? Richard J can slap an edge on that thing that will FRIGHTEN the trees down without ever even having to put edge to wood.

 

[Jason B.]

Without a belt sander its going to take some elbows grease but won't be that bad if you pick up some emery cloth. I would put it over a leather strop to keep some convex as it will make it cut better. Emery cuts fast so the work shouldn't take too long.

Grind like a scandi blade and place the whole saber grind on the hone, while honing the large surface keep pressure focused more to the edge so metal gets removed in the right places. Have fun, show pix.

 

[HotSteel]

As I understand it, the cool thing about the "guard near the spine" is that it made it possible to bind the knife through the holes in the guard (quillon?) to the end of a pole, thus using it as a spear tip. I guess you have to carve a notch in the end of the pole so that you could run the bindings through the notch, making it less likely to push back off the pole.

I guess. Looks like you could get most of the same effect just by binding the handle around the pole.

 

[james terrio]

Keeping the bevel angles essentially the same but bringing them all the way to the edge (a la scandi grind) is going to make the very edge thinner, but won't make it cut any better - you'll still have a pretty steep angle to deal with. This sounds bass-ackwards, but the knife may actually perform worse overall with a thinner edge, since these knives are typically tempered so soft. Far too soft to support a zero edge, in my experience.

I'd leave the edge thickness alone. Instead, do your work on the "shoulders" where the sabre grind meets the full thickness of the blade and thin that out. Bringing the grind higher and making it a bit more acute will improve cutting ability. Fully-convexing the bevels in a smooth, shallow arc (nearly flat) from the spine right down to the original thickness behind the edge is going to give you about the best overall performance you can get out of that particular knife (and the way it's HT'ed).

I've owned and modded several USAF Pilot's knives, and frankly, making them really cut well is like trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine - that's just not what they're made for. They're a curious combination of soft steel, steep angles, heavy weight, and a really thin, weak tip which makes them perform poorly in almost every actual cutting situation. Other than bending over or snapping off the very tip, they are pretty tough, though, and the pommel is very suitable for pounding on things.

 

[t1mpani]

Agreed--I've done a few myself; the ones made by Camillus seemed to consistently be slightly harder than the others (Ontario, etc.) but still mid-fifties at absolute best. I took one down to a full-flat Scandi and ended up cutting a new secondary bevel on it to get any kind of edge longevity at all.