SHBM work in progress

Flatsman007

Flatsman007

Gold Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2010
Messages
2,589
Well as promised she is getting stripped. If she is blue able, she will be blued. Here we go.

She looks ready to me.
cc624aee.jpg

aea7ac89.jpg


Coatings fear this stuff.
4781a938.jpg


And she's getting a good rub down.
7c502cea.jpg

8ab1965c.jpg

14cf2477.jpg

6de561af.jpg


Scrape, scrape, scrape..... Here is the scraper I always use.
1996eb4e.jpg


Well it's getting dark and this old school Busse coating is tuff as crap, gonna call it a day for now. To be continued........
 
I can't wait for part 2 :thumbup:

You should have beat on it a lot more before you stipped it though :D

Oh, those plastic scapers have a nasty tendency of melting when using paint stripper :o :D
 
Well I'm having a chance to post the stripping results and was very surprised to find the flats so dark. Don't know at this point if bluing it is going to be practical. Unlike David Brown's NMSFNO in the other thread, which appears to be satin prior to bluing, the SHBM is very dark under the coating. Well let's see.....
d3a0bb8a.jpg

51e91bc3.jpg

4efb4eda.jpg

5bd8ed18.jpg

64191cc5.jpg

231661a6.jpg


Notice how it left some of the coating in the wear areas on the blade. You can't even scrape it off in these areas. That leaves sanding I guess? Any ideas how to remove this and leave the blade dark / unsanded? Also notice how cool the black canvas looks with all of the old patina washed off. I'll wait for some input on the ramaining coating befor I proceed. I have not encountered it on the other five Bussekin's I stripped two of which were Busses.
 
Flatsman007 said:
Well I'm having a chance to post the stripping results and was very surprised to find the flats so dark. Don't know at this point if bluing it is going to be practical. Unlike David Brown's NMSFNO in the other thread, which appears to be satin prior to bluing, the SHBM is very dark under the coating. Well let's see.....

4efb4eda.jpg



Notice how it left some of the coating in the wear areas on the blade. You can't even scrape it off in these areas. That leaves sanding I guess? Any ideas how to remove this and leave the blade dark / unsanded? Also notice how cool the black canvas looks with all of the old patina washed off. I'll wait for some input on the ramaining coating befor I proceed. I have not encountered it on the other five Bussekin's I stripped two of which were Busses.
Click to expand...

.

This picture looks like you didn't remove all of the paint/coating, it should be a dull silver/grey metal color like those wear edges. It there paint still on the blade? :confused:

.
 
Other than the area with the spine and the edge in this picture I can assure you it is stripped dark bare metal, I think. I thought the same thing. I even took brass brush to it. I have worked on alot of firearms and know this has to be bare other than the jagged lines of stuck coating.
4efb4eda.jpg

Anyone else have a thought on this?
 
With the old smooth coating there is under the paint a powdered form of preperation coating prior to applying the smooth coat ... this is what you have ... it needs to be sanded to be removed ... I use a triangular electric sander of the type shown below ...

P1000838-1.jpg


Do the work outside so the dust can blow away and wear a dust mask and glasses ... if windy then position yourself so the wind is a cross wind and not blowing the dust back at you ...

As you use the sander you will see the particle coating start to come away in a grain like structure ... then under that is the proper steel which can take a satin finish ...

The area around the handle is the tough bit to do without removing the grips ... the nooks and crany's by the pommel are hard to get the triangular sander to bite into ... for those bits I use a sharp angled pencil eraser and some wet and dry paper over the eraser using it as a sanding block ... this enables you to get close to the grips ...

How you finish the blade is up to you ... personally I go for sander patches which are in the 240 grit range and use strokes in one direction from spine to edge to give a brushed satin effect ...

Bluing the blade makes little sense if you want to use it for food prep ... the chemicals are toxic in the bluing ... whereas a ghetto satin finish makes perfect sense for "hard use" and food prep as you can easily restore the finish if batoning causes scratches etc and you can tell when it is properly clean from resin and tanin deposits from chopping ...

Let us know how you get on :thumbup:
 
Thanks Peter, the jagged coating edge I'm seeing must be the balled up undercoating and not anything to do with the top coating like I thought it was. It makes more sense. It there any way to break that down chemically? The stripper I am using is far more powerful than anything I have ever seen and it did not phase it. Is there any way to break down the inner coating chemically, without sanding?
 
.

Did you only try the stripper the one time? If so, do it again for longer, it may take a few times.................

.
 
I've found that temperature plays a huge role in how active the stripper is. If the ambient temp is cool, it'll take longer.
 
Could the powder coating Peter noted have been somewhat irregularly impregnated in the steel?

Also, I skimmed, but did you note where one can find the tal strip?
 
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you ... but to answer your question about chemically removing the undercoating ... you can certainly try to apply the stripper again and see what happens ... but having had a go with a brass brush to no effect I am not sure whether more stripper would work ... over here in the UK we have sponges for kitchen use which have sponge on one side and green nylon scrubber material on the other ... if you wear rubber gloves try using the scrubber side with the chemical stripper on the blade and see how that helps. If it does'nt then perhaps try a wire "brillo" pad for cleaning ovens ... this may be more abrasive ... ultimately though I think what you have is some form of basic bead blasting to give a finish that the paint can adhere to ... therefore for me the best and quickest way to sort it was using a sander ... I am not sure why gimmejr says not to use one ... maybe from a safety perspective ? ... obviously you need to be careful with regard to the edge ... but removing the blasting by use of the sander is not going to harm the steel ...

Guys who have done good work stripping and giving a blade a nice ghetto satin finish have used grinders where they replace the grinding wheels with scotch brite wheels ... this would also remove the undercoating ... and would give a great finish ... there are a number of guys who have done this to their Basic 11's ... Oeser is one from memory I think ...

However some form of power tool is going to be needed IMO unless you want to use a simple sanding block with wet and dry paper and donate a lot of time to the task.

The important thing is not to use tools which are going to alter the natural grind lines by being too abrasive ... a belt sander being a good example ... these can alter the grind line by the ricasso and will turn the blade into a fully convexed shape when it is ground as a "flat grind" ... scotchbrite wheels would be my preference ... I could'nt find a supplier of these over here so I went with a triangular sander. I have however done a load of knives this way and the results are fine ...

Here is a Basic 5 which had the same black smooth coating as your SHBM ... both from around the same period ... I stripped this because I wanted to use it for "food prep" and I like to know my knives are properly clean ...

P1010166-1.jpg


This Basic 5 has seen a load of hard use ... and bringing back a decent ghetto satin finish is not hard to do ... usually a bit of polishing with "Flitz" is all it takes ...

Good luck in finishing off the job :thumbup:
 
I agree with Peter. I have tried tons of finishing belts. Jared (Oeser) really opened my eyes to how effective the wheel is for something like this. If you are making your own contours with a belt sander then a finishing belt will work perfectly. Trying to finish a BUSSE with belts and you are going to run into problems if you don't want to reshape the knife at all. I would recommend a scothbrite wheel also. I would practice on a cheap knife first but I can't think of a better suggestion. Aside from really taking some time and hand sanding. That would be incredible, but I have done this with a Ranger RD6 and it took a few days.

Good luck and don't mess that one up :)

Kevin
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top