Supplies:
Sear Craftsman, cordless Dremel.
Different grits of sand paper.
Mother Mag Wheel polish. But I'm sure any abrasive polish would work.
Coarse & fine grit mini Scotch brite wheels for the dremel. (Brown & green)
A good movie to watch while polishing.
This BM was one of my first "Higher End" knives. I carried it a little until I noticed a little spotting on the thumb ramp. I guess from the sweat from my hands. This little incident turned me off to bead blasted blades. ( Except for a CQC67) Couldn't pass that one up. The BM has been sitting in my safe for probably 4-5 years since. I have yet to buy another knife which has BB on the blade.
I had purchased a Commander which was going to be my project knife. I figure I would experiment with a knife I really didn't care about first before I wreck a brand new Commander, thus the BM.
Like See2 said, Those pesky micro allen head screws strip easily. I stripped two of them. Had to extract them with an EZ out. Went all over looking for replacement screws. Home Depot, Sears, even Kmart. I finally gave up & emailed Benchmade for replacement ones.
Took the knife apart. I first sanded the blade with fine sand paper until most of the BB was gone. I then used a Dremel & Mothers polish to polish the blade. Be careful when using a Dremel with polish. It throw the polish all over the place, walls, ceiling, wife, onto the nosy dog investigating the noise from the dremel, etc.
The blade didn't look right probably because I didn't go deep enough on the BB. I sanded it some more. Got tired of sanding & bought a mini scotch brite wheel for the Dremel. This worked great. Got the finish I was looking for, but the grains are a little too fine. Then as I mentioned, I hand polished the blade again for literally an hour to see how it would look. (Pictured above) I'm not sure I like it, so I'll probably try the coarse wheel tomorrow.
You'd be amazed at how roughly finished the steel is under the bead blasting. There are deep scratches & actual tiny pits in the steel under the BB. I know I didn't cause them as I never put anything hard enough to the blade which would cause pits & deep scratches. The BB hid these flaws. I guess that's why manufactures use coatings or bead blasting. It saves time & money on the final finishing of the blade. No buffing or polishing, just coat it or BB it. This is probably a topic on its own.
Anyway the entire process is pretty simple. I'm no rocket scientist. Just bored. All it take is some elbow grease. It would be a heck of alot easier if I had a grinder which I could put a larger, coarse Scotch Brite wheel on. It would cut out the sanding, polishing, & re-sanding process.
If I get good results tomorrow with the coarse wheel I'm going to do the same process to my hard chrome Commander The Commander will probably be easier as I don't have to go too deep to get rid of the BB. But then again, they don't call it Hard Chrome for nothing. We'll see.
Eric: An old DeLorean...hum, I think I'll need more then a Dremel for that project.
Sorry for the long post. BTW, use goggles when using the Dremel. I got that from the instructions which came with it & polishing compound hurts like heck when you get it in your eye
I think I can actaully see better out of the eye which got the polish. It buffed my cornea
