Okay, my goal was to make my Alias totally metallic. I liked the knife a lot, but hated the stupid, stupid (did I say stupid?) blue accents and gray anodization. I love the look of bare metal. Basically, I spent a ton of time on this project. I initially tried to bring the handles up to a mirror finish, but I guess this is simply one of those metals that it doesn't make sense to do this with. Hard to get it there, plus it would scratch if you breathed on it wrong. Seems to be counterintuitive, but it was true in my unpracticed experience. Ended up with a stonewashed finish that I absolutely love (better than the mirror finish; sometimes I just try to do things because they're difficult) on the handles, replaced the thumbstud with something much cooler, and took all the color off the spacers. I ended up with an all-metal looking Alias that is exactly what I wanted. I know how to get there MUCH more efficiently now, but this whole thing was a very roundabout, experimental, and educational process. I've probably literally put 15-20 hours collectively over the last 4 weeks into it. Tinkering is fun. Check it out; I think it looks darned cool:
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/lewdog/images
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/lewdog/images
