what type of stripper for cold steel teflon?

M

Muaddib1116

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Dec 26, 2010
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What is the least caustic stripper I can use to get the teflon coating off? Will acetone or denatured alcohol work? Thanks.
 
I used a very light grit wet-dry sandpaper. No chemical stripper. That stuff comes off real easy.

recon_1_bare.jpg
 
I don't want to polish away the underlying finish. From what I've been told it's somewhat of a stonewash, and I'd like to keep that.
 
I saw a guy on youtube use a stripper called kleen-strip to remove the coating from a cold steel srk.It seemed to take the coating off in seconds. So I go to my local home depot today and get the same stuff and try it on my american lawman.The blade has been sitting in the stripper for several hours and it doesnt seem to be working at all. I'm going to leave it on over night and see what happens.I'll let you know how it goes.
 
For my first one all I used were a couple razor blades. It didn't harm the finish underneath at all (a big reason why I didn't use sandpaper) and it all came off cleanly! Nice stonewash underneath, but not completely finished. I hit the edge and had to resharpen, so be wary of that.
 
I think I'll go to the hardware store tomorrow and try to find a chemical stripper, I want to do the aluminum backspacer too, and any scraper I would use would probably mark that up pretty bad.
 
From what I found on google, it seems that epoxy-stripper is successful. I'll let you guys know how I fare tomorrow.
 
I dont know,the stuff I tried is called kleen-strip and is a paint/epoxy stripper.After letting the blade soak in it for over 16 hrs it hasnt done anything.As I said above,the youtube vid shows this stuff dissolving the coating off a srk in about 20 seconds.I guess there is a different a different coating on the lawman because its not working for me at all.Let us know if you have better luck.
 
Brake fluid works a treat on most coatings without destroying the surface finish of the metal. Be careful around the handle though.
 
So it's done. And it wasn't easy. I ended up going in reverse and entering "caustic-as-hell" territory. But first, let's back up to yesterday. I was too impatient, so I took a soft-steel letter opener and scraped the coating off the lock-bar, this was easy enough because it's all flat surfaces (pretty much). It revealed a darkish stonewashed finish.

Today I got some spray on Klean-Strip at the Depot. This stuff is nasty. It doesn't smell like much, but it eats through normal nitrile/latex/vinyl gloves and if it touches your skin, wash it off immediately. I let the blade and the aluminum back spacer soak in it for a couple hours. Cold Steel must be listening to some degree because the blade coating is not nearly as fragile as many online reviews have led me to believe. Even after a soak, it only slightly softened up the black teflon, and I had to go at it with a brass welding brush I bought. With some applied muscle, the blade cleaned up nicely, and the brass brush didn't leave a mark. The blade is a nicely stonewashed finish (lighter in color than the lock bar).

The aluminum back spacer is either a different coating all together or the bond with aluminum is far more robust than with steel. The Klean-Strip did nothing. I ended up sanding the spine of the back spacer, which took off a little more material than I would have liked, but the final package looks pretty nice. Here's some pics. They don't show the stonewash too well, I'll see if I can get ones that do later.

Recon1.jpg

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Nice work. For posterity, and future searchers, I used Jasco epoxy stripper and it had almost no impact on the finish. I left it on for a long time, and cleaned and refreshed it at least a half dozen times. Eventually it knocked off a few flakes. I gave up and began manually removing the remaining teflon using a piece of plastic as a scraper. Took two days worth of messing with it. I am happy with the results but what a pain in the butt. I will never do it again. :grumpy:
 
Another note for future readers - I've had very good luck stripping the teflon CS coating using nothing more than a jewelers screwdriver. Scrape away lightly, the stuff comes right off. A bench grinder nearby helps too, just touch the screwdriver to the stone for a second or two to raise a burr and use the burr to work the coating off. Repeat often as the burr gets smoothed down. I've done a number of CS knives, including both generations of Recon in this manner.

BTW, nice job - they look a lot better with the coating gone!
 
TechExec said:
Nice work. For posterity, and future searchers, I used Jasco epoxy stripper and it had almost no impact on the finish. I left it on for a long time, and cleaned and refreshed it at least a half dozen times. Eventually it knocked off a few flakes. I gave up and began manually removing the remaining teflon using a piece of plastic as a scraper. Took two days worth of messing with it. I am happy with the results but what a pain in the butt. I will never do it again. :grumpy:
Click to expand...

I used the same stuff, and thought that it wasnt working, until I started brushing te teflon off with a metal brush. The teflon came off really easy. The Jasco did not appear to be working, but, it really softened up the coating.
 
That finish is pretty similar - maybe the same thing - that you see on the new stone washed Voyager lineup. I prefer the polished look of the older Voyagers, but its subjective.

IMG_1873.jpg
 
Teflon is very chemically inert; in fact it is so inert, it is used as the lining of scientific chemistry pumps which pump caustic stuff like acids. I don't think it will be easy at all to find some chemical that can strip it off.

Teflon is used as a knife coating not only because it's slippery, but also because it's super resistant to corrosives/chemicals!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

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"What grit sharpens the mind?"--Zen Sharpening Koan
 
Lagrangian said:
Teflon is very chemically inert; in fact it is so inert, it is used as the lining of scientific chemistry pumps which pump caustic stuff like acids. I don't think it will be easy at all to find some chemical that can strip it off.

Teflon is used as a knife coating not only because it's slippery, but also because it's super resistant to corrosives/chemicals!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

----------------------------------------------------------------------
"What grit sharpens the mind?"--Zen Sharpening Koan
Click to expand...

Acid is not caustic. ;)
 
So basically for now all we know is that no one really knows which susbstance to use to strip the teflon from a CS knife?
The guy that was using kleen-strip on the SRK had an amazing result only because SRK coating in totally different from a Recon1 or a Lawman...
I tried razor blades but they do mark the stonewash coating a bit here and there...

Any other suggestions? Has anyone actually succeeded in removing TEFLON from a knife?
 
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