Will heating a steel clip up until it's red hot ruin it?

Fred Sanford

Fred Sanford

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Sep 3, 2006
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I didn't like the shiny chrome look of one of the stock Spyderco Paramilitary 2 clips, so I heated it up. I used a small MAPP gas torch and heated it up until it was glowing bright orange/white. It seemed to have either burned off the polish (not sure if it was actually chrome or not) or at least covered it with something else.

The clip just cooled back down on its own. It's not the look I want so I am trying to figure out a good way to get rid of the polished look. A dull grey would be nice.

My question is, if these clips are "sprung" would my heating it up like I did have ruined the clip?
 
Stories like this, make me afraid to bid on stuff on eBay. lol
 
If you have access to a beadblasting cabinet that will give you a great satin finished look
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NRA said:
Stories like this, make me afraid to bid on stuff on eBay. lol
Click to expand...

Hahahhahahahaha. It's just the clip. In fact it's an extra clip that I don't need so I was seeing what would happen. I run black clips on my Spydies. ;)
 
Heating it up to cherry red won't hurt it. It's how you cool it down that does the damage.
 
Honestly, I don't think it would hurt much. They tend to use soft, unhardenable steel for clips and such.
 
I have heated two different kershaw clips (with the offset holes) up and bent them 180 so they were deep carry clips. I had a third (well the first I did) not work and just snap but the other two worked fine. I heated it red hot then bent slowly them reheated then bent a little more. It still holds up just as well as any factory deep carry clip I've ever seen.

If you don't mind notching holes so they're oblong you can get one of those generic Ti clips from USA knife maker and heat it up and bend it however you want, they're a stonewashed finish but like I said the hole pattern is just a little too wide but you can easily fix that.
 
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Annealing ant metal changes it's properties, I'm familiar with copper and have heated hard copper to make it more pliable. A lot of the steel used for clips are cold pressed so they retain their hardness and flexibility, heating them to a glow will usually soften the metal
 
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