- Joined
- Oct 24, 2011
- Messages
- 2,589
Some of you saw my brazen attempt to re-shape my BK-9 with a bench grinder. This impatient and ill-equipped effort didn't turn out well.
Fortunately, the kind and generous K9-Handler offered to help me out. He did his media blasting to clean it up a bit and sized up the work to be done.
After doing his thing, this is how it ended up after grinding.
K9 also offers a Duracoat service and he sent me this teaser before he shipped the knife back.
Since this was my first extensive customization, I figured it was a good excuse to get some new custom ipe scales from Tommythewho and the BK-Oregon was born. K9's re-shaping not only corrected my mistakes, it is pretty much spot on with the vision of having a longer and taller Ritter Mk2/BK-12. The Duracoat looks great too. It's smoother than the Ka-Bar coatings and feels much tougher even after just a few days when it's still curing.
With the inspiration and the new guy. The blade length on the BK-Oregon is right at 8 inches now.
I must say that I went completely against K9's expert advice that the Duracoat takes 30 days to fully harden and batoning is not a good idea this early while it's still curing. I just couldn't help myself and had to put this new blade to work. It's still a bit front heavy but it balances right in front of the scales. Still a chopper but a little less length and weight out front make it a bit more nimble.
Four whacks and it's doing some damage to this limb.
Just a few more and it smashes through the rest of it.
This was a pretty dense piece of wood. I really had to hammer to get it through but with most of the length of its former self still intact, and a flat spine and no swedge, the BK-Oregon was up for the job and proceeded on to make a decent pile of firewood. The baton got through it intact without much damage at all. Unfortunately, I didn't wait anywhere near long enough for the Duracoat to fully set and to make matters worse, I kept the knife in a sheath for the few days I did have it. The Duracoat didn't have much of a chance to really harden at all.
I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. I chopped and batoned for the better part of an hour and the new shape works beautifully. K9-Handler's grinding saved the day and the Duracoat really is beautiful. I think if I had let it harden, it would have been a great improvement over the factory coating. It feels much smoother so it shouldn't add nearly as much friction as you would expect a coating to do and there are a lot of colors to choose from. Tom's scales feel great too. I whacked them once or twice while batoning and that ipe is so hard it doesn't show any signs of it.
Fortunately, the kind and generous K9-Handler offered to help me out. He did his media blasting to clean it up a bit and sized up the work to be done.
After doing his thing, this is how it ended up after grinding.
K9 also offers a Duracoat service and he sent me this teaser before he shipped the knife back.
Since this was my first extensive customization, I figured it was a good excuse to get some new custom ipe scales from Tommythewho and the BK-Oregon was born. K9's re-shaping not only corrected my mistakes, it is pretty much spot on with the vision of having a longer and taller Ritter Mk2/BK-12. The Duracoat looks great too. It's smoother than the Ka-Bar coatings and feels much tougher even after just a few days when it's still curing.
With the inspiration and the new guy. The blade length on the BK-Oregon is right at 8 inches now.
I must say that I went completely against K9's expert advice that the Duracoat takes 30 days to fully harden and batoning is not a good idea this early while it's still curing. I just couldn't help myself and had to put this new blade to work. It's still a bit front heavy but it balances right in front of the scales. Still a chopper but a little less length and weight out front make it a bit more nimble.
Four whacks and it's doing some damage to this limb.
Just a few more and it smashes through the rest of it.
This was a pretty dense piece of wood. I really had to hammer to get it through but with most of the length of its former self still intact, and a flat spine and no swedge, the BK-Oregon was up for the job and proceeded on to make a decent pile of firewood. The baton got through it intact without much damage at all. Unfortunately, I didn't wait anywhere near long enough for the Duracoat to fully set and to make matters worse, I kept the knife in a sheath for the few days I did have it. The Duracoat didn't have much of a chance to really harden at all.
I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. I chopped and batoned for the better part of an hour and the new shape works beautifully. K9-Handler's grinding saved the day and the Duracoat really is beautiful. I think if I had let it harden, it would have been a great improvement over the factory coating. It feels much smoother so it shouldn't add nearly as much friction as you would expect a coating to do and there are a lot of colors to choose from. Tom's scales feel great too. I whacked them once or twice while batoning and that ipe is so hard it doesn't show any signs of it.
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... Great work to Tommy and K9.
But I warned you...and it IS your knife to do with as you will.
