Scratch Removal

W

Willieboy

Joined
Jul 4, 2002
Messages
1,237
HI guys,

Received a brand new fighter yesterday. Came with a Kydex sheath. I inserted knife into sheath and now have nearly full length scratches on one side of the blade. The knife was ground, so the grind lines run from the spine to the edge. The comlimentary crummy sheath scratches run lengthwise.

Can antone give me some direction as to how to remove the scratches? I have no power sanders or buffing wheels.

Thanks,

Bill
 
Bill, I have used flitz paste and a toothbrush to remove scratches on o-1 steel but it took a while. Also it left behind a much higher polish finish than the rest of the blade so I ended up doing the whole thing otherwise you just trade a scratch for a shiny streak.
 
Let's look at it this way:

A scratch in a material is caused by something harder than that material removing some amount of the material. There is no such thing as removing a scratch, because that's like removing a hole: it can't happen. You need to either fill it (which isn't feasible because there is nothing appropriate to fill it with), or make it unnoticable by scratching everything around it so it's all on the same level.

On to my point! You have a scratch right now on your new knife. It must bug you- it would bug me too. But the fact is that a knife is a tool, meant for using! So how about instead of removing the scratch right now, you use the knife more, get it all scratched up and enjoy using it, and then at some future date remove all of those scratches if you still want to? No need to remove perfectly good material before you've used it- and if you get the knife perfect again now, you'll never be able to bring yourself to use it! There's plenty more metal underneath, the scratched surface will just preserve its hidden beauty!
 
NeedleRemorse said:
Let's look at it this way:

A scratch in a material is caused by something harder than that material removing some amount of the material. There is no such thing as removing a scratch, because that's like removing a hole: it can't happen. You need to either fill it (which isn't feasible because there is nothing appropriate to fill it with), or make it unnoticable by scratching everything around it so it's all on the same level.

On to my point! You have a scratch right now on your new knife. It must bug you- it would bug me too. But the fact is that a knife is a tool, meant for using! So how about instead of removing the scratch right now, you use the knife more, get it all scratched up and enjoy using it, and then at some future date remove all of those scratches if you still want to? No need to remove perfectly good material before you've used it- and if you get the knife perfect again now, you'll never be able to bring yourself to use it! There's plenty more metal underneath, the scratched surface will just preserve its hidden beauty!
Click to expand...

Exactly! :D

When you get to the point you want to clean up the scratches a bit and make them less noticable, you can use progressively finer grit wet/dry sand paper. I start at 800 grit and finish at 2000 on a mouse pad. Draw the blade across the surface with the whole blade in contact with the paper spine first (opposite the way you might normally sharpen). In addition to smoothing out scratches, it also lightly convexes the blade so you may need to reprofile a bit if that bothers you.
 
Thanks guys. I appreciate your input.

NeedleRemorse, to your point, I know what you're saying about a knife being a tool. I wouldn't mind a scratch on an Ontario Tak for example. A Tak one can be nothing buy a user, but the knife I'm talking about was collector quiality. I would not object to scratches caused by wear and tear, but one caused by an ill fitting sheath Pi@#es me off. It's like buying a new car and finding a dent in the door caused by some blockhead in the garage who was readying the car for delivery. Damage caused by carelessness and abuse give me a bad case of the JAWS!

I have started to deal with the scratches and think that in the end, they'll be less noticeable.
 
NeedleRemorse said:
Let's look at it this way:

A scratch in a material is caused by something harder than that material removing some amount of the material. There is no such thing as removing a scratch, because that's like removing a hole: it can't happen. You need to either fill it (which isn't feasible because there is nothing appropriate to fill it with), or make it unnoticable by scratching everything around it so it's all on the same level.

On to my point! You have a scratch right now on your new knife. It must bug you- it would bug me too. But the fact is that a knife is a tool, meant for using! So how about instead of removing the scratch right now, you use the knife more, get it all scratched up and enjoy using it, and then at some future date remove all of those scratches if you still want to? No need to remove perfectly good material before you've used it- and if you get the knife perfect again now, you'll never be able to bring yourself to use it! There's plenty more metal underneath, the scratched surface will just preserve its hidden beauty!
Click to expand...

I like the way you think! All my blades are users with scratches. I bought them to enjoy not gather dust!
 
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