What is the best way to strip crinkle coating.

gunfreak101

gunfreak101

Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
338
I have a milganza meaner street that is a user and the coating is starting to chip off and I wanted to go ahead and strip it off. What is the best way to do this.
 
a chemical paint stripper, available at any hardware store.

i use a spray on, then just scrape away with a plastic paint scraper.
 
Here is a Hell Razor that I stripped using a chemical stripper. I submerged the HR in a chemical stripper and it did not affect the linen grips, no discoloration, no darkening.

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My Hell Razor after stripping
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Getting the coating off takes only a couple minutes, no matter what stipper you use. It's not smooth under the coating though; there's dimples. It doesn't look like an LE satin. Making surface smooth and dimple free is a whole other beast. There are many techniques for that, which have dramatic ranges in time.

I've stripped an Active Duty and got a satin finish out of it in under an hour using an Scotch Brite attachment on a drill.
 
I think I'm going to try this tomorrow on my new BATAC. I think the grey is giving me nightmares of riding around on damn Navy ships. :grumpy:

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gunfreak101 said:
I have a milganza meaner street that is a user and the coating is starting to chip off and I wanted to go ahead and strip it off. What is the best way to do this.
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I order something to drink, and then tuck a few bills behind her scales. if that seems to be going well, I'll pay for a lap dance, and that usually does the trick.
 
I used Klean-Strip KS-3 Premium Stripper from Walmart to do my Game Warden. It was a Muddy Crinkle finish w/ tan Micarta. I applied the stripper with a small paint brush and immediately the finish started to bubble up and fall off. The first application got most of the finish off, then it was just a matter of spot applications. I got this stuff all over the micarta and it did not affect it at all. Sorry for the poor picture quality, but I am using a camera phone until my Canon Powershot G9 gets here (thanks Lunde for the advice on the G9).
The first 2 pics are right after stripping, the rest are after using the Scotch Brite disc in a drill (thanks Damn the Man)
 
I just submerged my meaner in paint stripper canvas and all.


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Turned out pretty well. I never even had to touch up anything.. washed it off with water, dry it, good to go..

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I was initially very reluctant to get the stipper chemicals on micarta or Res-C. Over time, I realized that the chemicals do NOT hurt either. I have now had plenty of stripper on plenty of micarta and Res-C without seeing ANY damage to micarta or Res-C from chemical stripper.
* I suppose I should qualify the above statement by saying: The Jasco brand gel type stripper I have personally used has not in any noticable way damaged my micarta or Res-C after up to 10 - 30 minutes of contact time. (** Don't breath the fumes from the stripper!!! - Use chemicals outside with good ventilation!) Actual time needed for chemical stripper to remove coating is about 5 - 10 minutes. Then I scrape, wash with dish soap and dry completely. Unfortunately, stripping pretty much has to be followed with a lot more work to make the blades look decent. The raw blades are generally decent as far as relatively smooth on the primary grind areas - although there is usually a dull gray that needs buffing off. But, the flat sides of the blades are VERY rough and usually fairly ugly.

See this link: http://www.swampratknifeworks.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005087#000000

Some blades have just a lot of dimples. But, sometimes there are all kinds of zig-zag machine marks that can be very tough to get smoothed out.

Sanding belts are a different story. They will cut up Res-C. If using a belt sander to remove all of the many pits and marks under the coating, be careful not to let the belt touch the Res-C. The belts will cut into the Res-C. Ultimately, this means it is very hard to get rid of or otherwise finish the pits and unfinished areas around the handles at the ricasso and pommels of coated knives.... :(

I have stripped many knives including Res-C.

I don't think the knives have to be submerged in stripper.
1) You are probably wasting chemicals
2) You might (likely) be removing coating from under the micarta or Res-C handle that could otherwise help protect the blade from rust. Especially, with micarta. I have on occassion put too much chemical on the tang areas around the handle and noticed the removal of some of the coating between the micarta and metal actually leaves noticeable gap areas. The coating has a very noticeable thickness. This gap doesn't look very good and probably collects moisture. It is not a big even gap. It is more of a bunch of small, but noticable fuzzy holes from the texture of the coating and the micarta. I recommend using as little stripper as possible around the handle and sanding the rest flush. I suppose the holes could be refilled with super-glue or similar and then sanded flush. This would be easy enough to do at the spine and belly of the handle, but it is very hard to sand the ricasso and pommel areas! :grumpy:

It doesn't take much stripper to do the job. I bought a quart sized can of gel type stripper and it will do Many knives to come. I recommend a gel type stripper.

Just brush on even and thick, let bubble till done bubbling and scrape off. Sometimes a little spot or two may need a second application, but as Damn the Man said, stripping the coating is VERY easy and very fast if you use the chemical stripper. It is the finishing of the blade under the coating that is the real work.

There are lots of posts on Bladeforums, and Swamp Rat forum about stripping and sanding blades. You will just need to do some searching. Using a belt sander takes some practice to get decent at for finishing knives. I recommend practicing on cheap steel before putting and expensive knife to a belt sander. Do more research about using a belt sander and practice. Or stick to sandpaper by hand or 3M wheels.

Good luck.

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Great advice DWRW thank you very much.

I'm planning on stripping a Badger with micarta and after reading your post think I may just leave the coating on the tang.
 
Blackwind said:
What exactly is a Scotch Brite disc? I'm going to assume I can put it on my Dremel. :D
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3M makes Scotchbrite products.

There are MANY different options including options for the Dremel tools.
But, for a piece of steel the size of a knife, most people would use a Scotchbrite wheel abrasive that you would mount to a larger rotary tool than a Dremel.

Dremel's are great tools, but only great for small projects. - Maybe for detailed parts on a folder, a VERY small knife, or even tight little areas such as around the ricassos and pommels. But, Dremel's are not so great for larger jobs and larger areas such as primary grinds and larger flat surfaces of most knives. Also, Dremels run at VERY high RPM and you can over-heat a very small area without noticing it. Because the area of heat is so small, it won't dissipate through the steel as well and noticably heat up the blade. I use my Dremel from time to time for little details, but watch out that you don't get small areas too hot.

You will likely have a hard time getting an even and consistant finish with any type of bit you could possibly put in a Dremel.

I recommend a larger Scotchbrite wheel for any knife made by Busse. Or any knife with a blade larger than 3" for that matter.

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theonew said:
Great advice DWRW thank you very much.

I'm planning on stripping a Badger with micarta and after reading your post think I may just leave the coating on the tang.
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I tried leaving the coating on a tang once and wasn't happy with the look.

It is so easy to use the stripper though, that it can't hurt to strip the coating in sections to see if you think you would be OK with the tang left coated.

You can strip the tang later if you change your mind.

I found that if you just lightly put the stripper on the areas near the tang and don't leave it too long, you can still scrape it off fairly easily without removing coating from under the handle.

I just recommend a thin coat for about 2-3 minutes, then scrape. If it doesn't come off, apply again for another 1-2 minutes.

You don't actually have to get "ALL" of the coating off with the stripper. Just most of it.

You can sand the remaining coating off if down to a couple of small spots. But, using at least some stripper is MUCH faster than sanding and cheaper as the coating will gum up your sanding paper quickly if sanding a bunch of coating. You would waste a lot of sandpaper and a lot of time trying to sand off the full coating.

A couple of small spots of coating left that may not come up if you do a thin coat for a short period won't be a big deal with sandpaper. But, you will still be surprised how sanding those spots is tougher than sanding bare steel. You will have to work the spots a little - then imagine how tough it would be to sand the entire coating. :eek: :barf:

If you leave a thick coating of stripper on the blade for about 15 minutes, I have literally had the coating just about 90 - 95% fall off / slip off the blade. Just needed to nudge a couple of corners of the "skin" with the scraper and dump the mess into the trash - I am sure these chemicals will eat through trash bags until full evaporated. I usually dump the skin mess onto a pile of paper towels or into the middle of leaves or similar debris in my outside trash can.

Good luck.

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