- Joined
- Apr 13, 2004
- Messages
- 17,064
I picked up this Howling Rat on the X awhile back. The seller's pics made it look like the blade had a nice, continuous curve all the way to the choil and that the edge did not flatten out like most. I thought this would make it a really nice skinner, so I bought it.
I masked off the rear portion of the blade, basically outlining the rear edge of the primary grind, then used some spray-on gel paint stripper to remove the black epoxy powder coating. It only took a few minutes and the stuff basically fell right off without any mechanical help. The paint stripper also oxidized the steel a little bit, so after thoroughly cleaning all of the stripper off, I buffed the blade by hand on a large sheet of Scotch Brite. It had a nice satin finish at that point, but I wanted it to end up a bit more polished to ease cutting while using it skinning, so I polished it up with some cloth wheels and Flitz polish. I then cleaned the blade with some Acetone, and then some Alcohol. At that point, I used some liquid Oxpho blue from Brownell's to blue the surface.
However, for some odd reason the bluing didn't take very well, especially on the primary grind (I've previously had really good luck with this stuff). I cleaned and re-applied the bluing several times, but for some odd reaon the bluing just wouldn't take well to the primary grind. No idea why. It is black in some places, but more brown in others. Oh well, it is what it is and I can always redo it at some point if I want, and I decided that I liked the look for a user anyway. Once I had all of that done, I thinned and convexed the edge to really make this thing CUT!!!
Anyway, here are the pictures of the end result. Sorry there aren't any WIP pictures, but this was my first strip job and I totally spaced taking any pictures.
Look at that laser edge shining!!!
This one shows the colors best. Note how the bluing took really well right at the back edge of the primary grind. Too bad the whole thing didn't end up that black.
Gotta love the Old Skool Rats!!! :thumbup:
I masked off the rear portion of the blade, basically outlining the rear edge of the primary grind, then used some spray-on gel paint stripper to remove the black epoxy powder coating. It only took a few minutes and the stuff basically fell right off without any mechanical help. The paint stripper also oxidized the steel a little bit, so after thoroughly cleaning all of the stripper off, I buffed the blade by hand on a large sheet of Scotch Brite. It had a nice satin finish at that point, but I wanted it to end up a bit more polished to ease cutting while using it skinning, so I polished it up with some cloth wheels and Flitz polish. I then cleaned the blade with some Acetone, and then some Alcohol. At that point, I used some liquid Oxpho blue from Brownell's to blue the surface.
However, for some odd reason the bluing didn't take very well, especially on the primary grind (I've previously had really good luck with this stuff). I cleaned and re-applied the bluing several times, but for some odd reaon the bluing just wouldn't take well to the primary grind. No idea why. It is black in some places, but more brown in others. Oh well, it is what it is and I can always redo it at some point if I want, and I decided that I liked the look for a user anyway. Once I had all of that done, I thinned and convexed the edge to really make this thing CUT!!!
Anyway, here are the pictures of the end result. Sorry there aren't any WIP pictures, but this was my first strip job and I totally spaced taking any pictures.
Look at that laser edge shining!!!
This one shows the colors best. Note how the bluing took really well right at the back edge of the primary grind. Too bad the whole thing didn't end up that black.
Gotta love the Old Skool Rats!!! :thumbup:
