Tinker/Atrim Camp Knife Restoration
Jan 26, 2015 19:27:14 GMT
Post by Lonely Wolf Forge on Jan 26, 2015 19:27:14 GMT
Howdy folks, I recently acquired a Collaboration piece between Tinker and Gus in a trade with a fellow forumite. The Knife had been pretty well neglected and was really rusty and had some pitting on the blade and tang, the grip screws were severely rusted, and the blade was less than butterknife sharp...yep shed seen some rough days. But I spent an afternoon in the shop restoring the blade to what i'd immagine it looked like when it was purchased new. I soaked the rusted up hex bolts in HOPPES gun cleaner to break them lose and then took them to a buffing wheel on my dremmel to clean off all the thick heavy crusty rust, and while she was disassembled i also polished all of the rust off the edges of the tang as well where the rust was thickest. Next i clamped the blade down on my bench and used progressive grits of auto body sandpaper starting at 120 grit and working my way up to 400 grit until all the rust was removed from the blades surface and it had a nice shiny satin polish. Next i took the knife to my belt sander and followed the original grind to sharpen both edges to a nice hair popping edge. I tested the blade out on a few bottles i had laying around and was easily able to knock out silent cuts consistently. This is a big thick tough sonofasemprini made from 5160 spring steel with tinkers amazing heat treat, i have no doubt this thing will annihilate heavier targets one would expect to encounter out in the Bush. I'm really happy to have gotten to hold a piece of Tinker and Gus's work.
I wish i had taken some pictures of the knifes condition before i did my restoration, but this customization post was an afterthought. Original plan was just to do the review and cutting video, but i guess ill just combine it all here in one post. As for score, I give this knife a 9/10 with the only noticable flaw being that the "guard" area could have been executed a little bit cleaner. It's really picking nits tho....the geometry of this blade is really quite nice. I would not hesitate to purchase a custom blade from either Tinker or Gus.
Heres a picture where you can kinda see the poor condition of the blade..although the other side was worse, and most of the rusting was on the exposed tang between the grip pannels.
I wish i had taken some pictures of the knifes condition before i did my restoration, but this customization post was an afterthought. Original plan was just to do the review and cutting video, but i guess ill just combine it all here in one post. As for score, I give this knife a 9/10 with the only noticable flaw being that the "guard" area could have been executed a little bit cleaner. It's really picking nits tho....the geometry of this blade is really quite nice. I would not hesitate to purchase a custom blade from either Tinker or Gus.
Heres a picture where you can kinda see the poor condition of the blade..although the other side was worse, and most of the rusting was on the exposed tang between the grip pannels.