I am one of the many still trying to find the ideal blade, and have gotten almost there, but come to the conclusion I am not a fan of serrated blades, obviously the closest I have so far found is now discontinued, and the one I have I got in serrated form... Rather than spending more money on trying out yet more knives or spending hours trying to track down an older plain edge model I was wandering how hard it would be to just grind down the serrations and resharpen the knife with a plain edge? Looking at the blade I have I have enough depth to grind it down and resharpen without thinning the blade too much, so my current plan is pretty much as simple as taking a file to the blade to remove the serrations, then running it through a sharpener until it is back to its normal sharpness. Probably fairly time consuming to get right, but certainly doable. The knife is a CRKT Mo'skeeter, which I believe has an AUS-6m blade.
errrrmmmm..........i dunno... doing any extensive grinding/reshaping to a blade is probably not a good idea unless you are a qualified bladesmith..... that being said, i would first go to a knife sharpener or even a dedicated knife shop and see if they can do the work for you.....it really shouldnt cost all that much for them to do it. if you do decide to do it yourself, make sure you have the proper equipment....i wouldnt try this with a dremel and some sandpaper....make sure you use a bench grinder...... also, make sure to keep an eye on the temperature, dont let it get to hot or else youll ruin the temper and youll end up with a really nice butterknife.
This is not really all that feasible. It may be possible, but given the cost of this particular blade it is not really all that good of an idea. To get it right you will probably have to have a pro do it and that will cost more than the knife is worth (it would probably cost around $20-40 and the blade is probably worth that right now, which according to Amazon is $17.95). The other thing is that it will probably ruin the heat treat on the knife and will definitely kill the blade geometry. What you will be left with is something less than usable. If you do it at home, unless you are VERY good, you will ruin the blade entirely.
Depending upon what resources you have available and how willing you are to risk disliking the result, I say go for it. I un-serrated my Benchmade 9050SBK and couldn't have been more glad to be rid of the serrated portion of the bade. I wouldn't recommend doing this on a grinder though, you definitely do not want to be heating up the blade to excess. I used a course grit diamond stone and the serrations melted away like butter! It took some amount of doing to get the blade to take on the shape that I was going for after the serrations where gone but I was happy with the result ultimately.
Very short 7-15 second burst of dremel combined with regular quenching should due the trick... I'm working on a dremel project of my own, & that's how I've been keeping the blade from heating up. Spear-point Delica 4 now unwaved:
You have to consider the geometry of the blade + serrations. Serrations cut high into the steel and to remove them would require A.) Kershaw Scallion type recurve thinggy or B.) a much smaller blade width all together after evening out your edge.
Send it to Tom Krein http://www.kreinknives.net/ he will regrind the blade for you any way you like it.
I agree. Even if you send it in for a Krein regrind, the blade shape is going to be drastically different. I don't think this would be easy to do on you own, either. Tom would probably charge you more than the knife is worth to regrind it, so you may want to start looking for similar models with a plain edge.
Just use it, and sharpen it… as if it wasn't serrated. The serrations will eventually go away. If you're really impatient, just dig out the coarse stone, and keep sharpening. I did that with a Victorinox One-Handed Trekker (just didn't like the front-end serrations, so I just sharpened 'em away) and a CRKT BladeLock. You won't ruin the heat treatment like you can on a grinder, but it'll take longer. If you're really paranoid about doing this on a discontinued knife, see if you can score another one on fleaBay.
Go for it - but remember: Not too hot, and keep a consistent angle. Heat is your enemy, it kills the tempering. You can remove just as little or as much metal you want with basically any method feasible, but if it gets to hot the temper is ruined. Forget about re-tempering your blade, you basically can't control the conditions nescessary. Keep in mind that the outermost part of the edge (i.e. any point) will be much more vulnerable to heat than a solid chunk of metal: At the sharp edge, the heat has a very limited volume of metal to which the excess heat can be transfered by conduction. So... dremel if you like, but like stated above, keep it moving and not too fast. Each point should be in contact with the wheel for only a very short period of time before cooling. At all times you should be able to touch the blade and edge with your fingers. Or go by hand with a high-abrasive stone. It's all about removing metal, as long as it's not too hot it doesn't matter how you do it. Remember to think about what you'd like the finished angle to be from the very beginning of your project. Personally, I think there are much more important things than being nit-picky about exactly what that angle is. Just keep an angle you can work consistently on, as long as you're not totally off the result should be more than satisfactory.
Due to a lack of dremel or similar I was planning on just attacking it with a metal file - so it would take a lot longer, but shouldn't be too hard on the treat treatment. After that I have one of the preset 'v' shaped sharpeners, so enough work on that and it shouldn't be too hard. As for the shape, if I remove the serrations and a corresponding depth of the plain edge section to keep it all the right shape, the blade will be a few mm shorter, but I don't think it should affect it too much for my needs. Alternatively I could just go buy myself a CRKT drifter or something equivalent for ~£25, which is probably cheaper than the man hours it would take to redo the blade myself...
I have close to zero experience with hand held metal files, but I see no reasons why it would not do a good job. Metal files are apparently quite often used to reprofiling and sharpening axes and machetes. Never done that, either, but my point is that you shouldn't underestimate what can be done with a file. It's all about removing metal at the right angle... I've had great fun convexing some mora's and similar, using a dremel to remove the "scandi" grind shoulder and the venerable mouse pad + sand paper trick for the rest. Counting man hours is not the appropriate measure, it is the skills you develop and the fun you have doing it that matters. If it doesn't work out, you've still learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Not to mention the fact that if you succeed - you took a piece of gear that held no use for you and turned into something special and truly useful that no one else here has. Best of luck, and do post the results here
Yikes! A metal file will destroy the subtle edge. Almost all metal files produce very coarse edges when compared to a stone. The other thing is that a metal file might produce a so called wire edge--a very sharp edge that collapses easily. Essentially the file will be more likely to produce sharp burrs that give the illusion of sharp without actually making the knife sharp. The file produced edge, if done right, will make an edge that is good for cutting but not slicing. Metal files were designed for chopping edges and objects with lots of steel like an axe.
I think what he is talking about doing is getting rid of the serrations and setting a very rough angle with a hand file then switching to a stone(s) to finish profiling and set the final edge. The wire edge would be gone shortly after he started working it on the stones. I tried this on a cheap knife. Yes, it is doable. Yes you can do it with just a file and some stones. No, it isn't pretty as a DIY mod. But, the important thing is, it is something that can be done. Just takes time and patience. And a steady hand. I would check fleabay for a used one without serrations first, but, it is your knife. Good luck! Oh, and remember to take pics! I want to see how it turns out.
Yes take progression photos! I considered this task a couple months ago but talked myself out of it. Seeing the progress would be interesting. Keep some water nearby
Belt sander and some water. Should be done in a couple of minutes. It will look a bit different, but no real worries. It isn't a heirloom you mess up if you don't get it right > Sverre PS! I do this quite often and it doesn't destroy the temper if you are a bit careful.
A file would not work, not even on aus6, the hardness difference is too small and you will dull the file in a few strokes.
yes, sharpen the serrations as if they weren't there. soon they won't be. unless they are extreeeeeeeeemely wide serrations.
