willworship
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2009
- Messages
- 1,188
I've seen several questions about how best to remove the coating from a Becker knife, so I thought I would share how I do it.
I was in the mood, so I went ahead and stripped my Fehrman Last Chance as well. I will probably post a comparison soon, but that is for another thread.
Before:
Here are the girls all lined up with their scales removed:
Here's the paint stripper I use (Klean Strip Sprayable Stripper), and I recommend it highly. I've tried competitive brands, and they didn't work. We stripped all the wood work in two rooms of our 1916 bungalow, and this stuff saved our lives! One warning, though: don't let it touch your skin, or you'll be very sorry.
The stripper is a gel, and it comes with a spray bottle, with which you spray it on your target. After you let it set for a few minutes, it begins to do this to the coating:
Once that happens, you can begin to scrape the peeling coating off. I recommend using the plastic scraper, because it leaves the metal underneath in better condition for the finishing process after the coating is gone:
The hardest part about the whole thing is getting the coating out of the holes for the screws and the lanyard! Be patient, unlike me, and it will all come off eventually.
When you're all done, it will look like this (as a side note, notice the difference in the colors of the steels beneath the coating, the Fehrman is CPM 3V, and you probably know the steel of the Becker...):
After using the razor knife to get the tiny bits that I missed and a little sanding, the girls look like this:
I still have lots more sanding to do until they're pretty, but you get the idea. I hope this is helpful for anyone who is looking to give it a shot.
I was in the mood, so I went ahead and stripped my Fehrman Last Chance as well. I will probably post a comparison soon, but that is for another thread.
Before:
Here are the girls all lined up with their scales removed:
Here's the paint stripper I use (Klean Strip Sprayable Stripper), and I recommend it highly. I've tried competitive brands, and they didn't work. We stripped all the wood work in two rooms of our 1916 bungalow, and this stuff saved our lives! One warning, though: don't let it touch your skin, or you'll be very sorry.
The stripper is a gel, and it comes with a spray bottle, with which you spray it on your target. After you let it set for a few minutes, it begins to do this to the coating:
Once that happens, you can begin to scrape the peeling coating off. I recommend using the plastic scraper, because it leaves the metal underneath in better condition for the finishing process after the coating is gone:
The hardest part about the whole thing is getting the coating out of the holes for the screws and the lanyard! Be patient, unlike me, and it will all come off eventually.
When you're all done, it will look like this (as a side note, notice the difference in the colors of the steels beneath the coating, the Fehrman is CPM 3V, and you probably know the steel of the Becker...):
After using the razor knife to get the tiny bits that I missed and a little sanding, the girls look like this:
I still have lots more sanding to do until they're pretty, but you get the idea. I hope this is helpful for anyone who is looking to give it a shot.
I experienced that when we were refinishing the wood work and having to spray the stuff overhead. If I ever do that again, I'm wearing a facemask of some kind. 
.