Turning a cheap knife into a great knife

Comeuppance

Comeuppance

Fixed Blade EDC Emisssary
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
4,765
AKA "Today I learned about heat anodization and had a lot of free time."

Knife in question: Navy K-507
Price paid per knife: 15 bucks, with shipping.

Things you can't see in the pictures: all moving parts polished, edge sharpened to the point that it can split standing hairs.

Original vs Finished product:



I tuned up the lockup so it is as absolutely early as possible while still being rock solid in all directions. Yes, the lock is actually engaged in this picture.



Polished up the G10, made some discreet bevels in the G10 for comfort.



With the stonewash, there's a slight electric blue crackling effect in the right light.









Boredom and a blowtorch, my friends.
 
Nice work. Not sure that I'd like the lockup "quite" that early...
:)
Can't do any harm when you pay that for the knife...
 
Sonnydaze said:
Nice work. Not sure that I'd like the lockup "quite" that early...
:)
Can't do any harm when you pay that for the knife...
Click to expand...

The angle of the picture, in hindsight, gives the wrong impression. The lock makes flat contact, but just with an absolutely insanely small amount of the tang. Rock solid, though. Can't force it to close no matter how much force I apply.
 
For that price if you want to make changes and they dont work then you have not lost a bunch of money! Kevin :D:thumbup:
 
Sturubu said:
How did you tune the lock-up?
Click to expand...

Navy has really spotty QC, so I bought two to make sure I got a good one. Sure enough, while one was fine, the other had a lock that didn't engage. That was this knife.

So, I very carefully wore down the lock bar with a fine ceramic stone until the lock juuuuuuust barely engaged.

And then I thought, "well, let's polish the washers too, and then maybe smooth out this G10 a bit, and then..."
 
Sweet project; looks good. I always said you can polish a turd until it shines, but it will still be a turd however, you proved my position wrong with your excellent tuning and now you've got a good piece to show for your work.
 
Comeuppance said:
Navy has really spotty QC, so I bought two to make sure I got a good one. Sure enough, while one was fine, the other had a lock that didn't engage. That was this knife.

So, I very carefully wore down the lock bar with a fine ceramic stone until the lock juuuuuuust barely engaged.

And then I thought, "well, let's polish the washers too, and then maybe smooth out this G10 a bit, and then..."
Click to expand...

Makes perfect sense! Last one I tried, I got a little too over-zealous with UF diamond, and went well beyond where I needed to...was hoping you discovered a way to reverse this, ha ha.
 
Sturubu said:
Makes perfect sense! Last one I tried, I got a little too over-zealous with UF diamond, and went well beyond where I needed to...was hoping you discovered a way to reverse this, ha ha.
Click to expand...

Well, you can reverse it with a carbidizing tool. The process of carbidizing adds minute amounts of material onto the lockface, increasing the wear resistance and smoothness at the same time.

But, that's a $200+ piece of equipment.
 
You can shove a stick in a dog turd and it may look like a fudgesicle but it aint'. It's still a dog turd.
 
Nice work. I would much rather learn how to do things on an inexpensive knife than one that cost ten times as much. If I had that knife apart I probably would have tried my hand at acid etching or acid washing. Maybe something like that. Thanks for taking the time to post your pics!
 
Tried my hand at a couple more, made a couple videos (also for a sale post that I won't link to, because I'm fairly sure that breaks some rule or another.)

Video 1 shows the lockup on the first one: http://tinypic.com/r/2djxg5d/5

Video 2:
[video=youtube;7AyMjKDYPFA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AyMjKDYPFA[/video]
 
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