strip coating on 1095 blade?

R

readyme

Joined
Oct 4, 2004
Messages
762
I have an Ontario RTAK II. The blade blank was sprayed with some sort of paint or epoxy that is looking like crap. It has been used, so there are some obvious wear patterns in the blade coating.
Is it reasonable to strip the coating so I am left with bare metal? My concern is that the 1095 will rust on me (here in the great north wet Washington).
If bare metal is not going to work, I may send it off to just get re-coated.
 
That is a great knife and signs of wear are normal. Why don't you strip it- keep it oiled or wax with ren wax ? I do this with all my blades otherwise I would have rust on most all of them.Coating is OK- but it does get marked up .
 
I thought the Ontario knives were black phosphate coated, which means no solvent will take it off, but I'm not sure.
 
ChapmanPreferred said:
I'd love to see some before and after shots if possible. :)
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Well I seemed to have lost my good original pics from when I did this to mine, so here are some from just now and a few old ones that are "ok". Blades a little scuffed and stained as of now, but you get the idea lol. It was very very purty when I first did it though. Left the "choil" and the flat part of the handle rough and with the HT color. I didn't want the grind lines completely out hence you seeing them still.

Process: Stripped with Jasco Epoxy Stripper from Home Depot. Slow speed on the orbital sander with slightly worn 350 grit and a squirt of Mothers Wheel Cleaner. Then finished it up by hand with some scotch brite and a final buff with some Nano Wax lol. Took me a few hours if I remember correctly. The convexed edge turned back into a V haha. Haven't used it in a while now.


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Zip7 said:
I did a rat3 on a wire wheel. It worked fine.
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I wouldn't recommend that to people over the internet, or even in person.

A proper stripper like Jasco's (which worked great for me too, you may want to have some stiff cardboard around to scrape off the coating, that's what was easiest for me)

Then hand sanding, you could also use a vibratory palm sander, but I would recommend staying away from things that spin if you don't have experience.

Unlike most things blades can catch and can cut you or other things.

Hope that helps, a protectant will prevent rust.
 
I used one of the Jasco strippers but I forget which one. It took overnight for it to become soft enough for me to start removing the coating. Did that to my CS SRK. IMO it does look better now.
 
Splat said:
I used one of the Jasco strippers but I forget which one. It took overnight for it to become soft enough for me to start removing the coating. Did that to my CS SRK. IMO it does look better now.
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The Jasco Epoxy will take about 8 minutes and you rinse with water. No scraping or anything, just gotta be the epoxy one. It bubbles in about 2 minutes, or less. Does look good huh :) I really like the look of satin knives now.
 
nemesis27 said:
The Jasco Epoxy will take about 8 minutes and you rinse with water. No scraping or anything, just gotta be the epoxy one. It bubbles in about 2 minutes, or less. Does look good huh :) I really like the look of satin knives now.
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Thanks for this. I'll try this one out in the future.
 
I used a Scotch Brite wheel on my Dremel for both the Izula and Ka Bar, it came off very easy.

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