- Joined
- Feb 28, 2009
- Messages
- 853
Hello everyone,
I was just curious to hear if anybody else tends to refinish the knives that they buy to make them a bit more personal? I just did a simple refinish on two Opinel No. 6's (one for myself and one for my cousin) by taking the knives apart, forcing a patina on the carbon steel blades, smoothing out the sharp corners on the butt of the handle, stripping off the varnish and sanding the wood, dying it and sealing it with wax. This is the result:
I'm really happy with how both of them turned out (the unaltered one is my cousin's before I refinished it--now they match) and a quick strop made them razor sharp.
I typically do some work on the handles of my fixed blade knives as well--they often come with a squarish geometry to the handles and I like a smooth, round handle so I knock down the corners and I'll strip and sometimes refinish wood ones. I also typically convex edges, but with the Opinels there isn't much there to convex, but I'm sure the simple fact that I strop on leather gives it a little convex geometry.
I was just curious to hear if anybody else tends to refinish the knives that they buy to make them a bit more personal? I just did a simple refinish on two Opinel No. 6's (one for myself and one for my cousin) by taking the knives apart, forcing a patina on the carbon steel blades, smoothing out the sharp corners on the butt of the handle, stripping off the varnish and sanding the wood, dying it and sealing it with wax. This is the result:
I'm really happy with how both of them turned out (the unaltered one is my cousin's before I refinished it--now they match) and a quick strop made them razor sharp.
I typically do some work on the handles of my fixed blade knives as well--they often come with a squarish geometry to the handles and I like a smooth, round handle so I knock down the corners and I'll strip and sometimes refinish wood ones. I also typically convex edges, but with the Opinels there isn't much there to convex, but I'm sure the simple fact that I strop on leather gives it a little convex geometry.
