Tip Recovery

[Thomas J Ekman]

I have a Native whose tip has been damaged. My Delica also needs emergency surgery after heavy resharpening due to failure during the rubber band test covered previously...

Does anyone have any suggestion as to how the tip may be recovered?

I can imagine that one would sharpen very light on the edge itself close to the tip to smoothen the edge, then proceed with normal sharpening...

 

[Knife Fumbler]

It depends on how damaged the blade is.
If it's just nicks in the blade just sharpen it out with a corse sharpener then sharpen it like you normally would.
If the tip broke off, you'd have to do some heavier steel removal (or you could keep your new screwdriver tip on it).
My friend had a buck oddessy and broke the tip off (in someone's rib during self defense) and he let me fix it.
I took it to a belt sander and put a nice tanto point on it and sharpend it.
It's great now. You just have to be careful not to overheat the blade while sanding so you dont mess up the heat treat.

 

[Ron Andersen]

Hi Thomas,

Again, depending on the amount that snapped off, many manufacturers are able to grind a new tip onto the knife. There likely would be a small shop charge involved. You may wish to give them a call and talk it over with them.

If you want it done right and done well, the manufacturer would be the way to go. Our guys here have performed surgery on a few knives with broken tips, and in the end (depending on the amount that broke off), they look brand new!

 

[dsvirsky]

Another little trick for those "Sharpmaker special" rounded tips is to use the groove in the [medium] stone. Working carefully with the blade positioned spine down (i.e. edge towards your hand), you can grind down the spine and thin out the tip a bit, bringing it back to a point.

 

[Michael_Aos]

Originally posted by dsvirsky
Another little trick for those "Sharpmaker special" rounded tips is to use the groove in the [medium] stone.

How do you avoid rounded tips with the Sharpmaker?

Mike

 

[dsvirsky]

Originally posted by Michael_Aos


How do you avoid rounded tips with the Sharpmaker?

Mike

Don't let the tip of the knife slip off the stone when using the corners.

Sounds simple, but as many of us have learned the hard way, it takes some care and concentration.

 

[Michael_Aos]

Originally posted by dsvirsky
Don't let the tip of the knife slip off the stone when using the corners.

I guess I still don't follow you.

Can you explain it more thoroughly?

Mike

 

[Thomas J Ekman]

I think he means that when you're using the Sharpmaker and working the knife towards you, you may slip when you come to the tip of the knife. This produces the rounded tip. I have a Native that has been damaged in this way (even if it took me a long time to realize that it was the way I used the Sharpmaker). It's not the Sharpmaker's fault, this could happen to anyone using a bench stone too if you hit something with the tip. You just need to be more careful when you are sharpening the area close to the tip, not like I did...

 

[GuyInBlack]

Mike - the Sharpmaker stones are triangular and you can sharpen using the "flats" or the "corners". Now when you're using the corners, if you're not careful, it's possible to drag the tip of the knife off the corner and down the flat side of the stone which basically removes some steel from the tip, causing it to round off. A good suggestion I read about on the Benchmade forum (I think it was Professor who suggested it) is to only use the flat sides of the stones for Sharpening, that way if you slip off theres nothing to grind the tip off the blade.

Hope this helps.

 

[marty123]

I've reshaped the tips of a few of my knives, not because they were damaged but because I wanted a different shape to the tip. There really is no point in going to the trouble and expense of shipping your knife in to somebody when it's quite easy to do it yourself.
One of the knives was a Buck Odyssey 181(ats-34). This is a great knife, but I felt the tip was too narrow, and the edge pointed straight forward and I wanted it to tilt upward a bit at the tip. So I reshaped the tip into a little mini-tanto tip. To do this I just used a cheap, coarse, sharpening stone. Rubbing the tip by hand quickly reshaped it into the desired shape. There was no need for a grinder or belt sander that might produce excessive heat. After that I sharpened the edge with my better quality stones. I've also ground down, by hand, the sabre/hollow-ground bevel of the blade into a flat grind. This has taken somewhat longer. The modified knife works great and I wish Buck would make an Odyssey model like this. I call it my Odyssey 181(modified). It's my favourite EDC along with my Spyderco Native.
I've also reshaped the tips of a few Schrade Old Timer fixed-blades with 1095 steel. These are very nice knives but the tips were not to my liking, so I ground down the spines of the tips, by hand, to reprofile the blades. This required the removal of more metal than the Buck Odyssey. I ground the first knife down on my cheap, coarse sharpening stone. It worked okay. For the next few knives I came up with something better. I used the back of a 20" x 20" piece of granite that I had sitting in my basement. The granite was polished on the top and rough on the back. The rough surface worked great as a grinding medium. Rubbing the spines of the tips on the rough granite reshaped the tips fairly easily. And it avoided the heat caused by a power grinder.
In conclusion, if all you have to do is remove a little metal to deal with a damaged tip, just do it yourself. You don't have to send your knife in to somebody to do something that you can do yourself quite easily, quickly, and inexpensively.