Big update today! My second/third week back at work turned into a ten day straight work week, so I haven't been able to get quite as much done as I hoped... But still lots to cover!
First, I decided not to sand down the top of the handle on my SOG Seal Pup Elite... Instead a friend of mine is trading me straight across for a brand new Morakniv Bushcraft Survival, which should serve my purposes as a camp/BoB knife much better. I should have it in a week or so when I go back to my hometown to visit family.
Next... The rest of my knife maintenance stuff came in. The strop is double sided and I plan on loading one side up with the black compound and the other side with the white compound and calling it good. The Petrol-Gel is for the torsion bar inside the Speedsafe Kershaw's and I'll use the mineral oil I already purchased for the blades. The applicator tip on the Daiwa Reel Oil is fantastic and really makes it easy to get to the inner workings of knives. The Wiha stubby has already gotten some use... It's AMAZING for holding free-spinning pivot screws in place while using a regular precision screwdriver on the other side. The Loktite is pretty self explanatory.
Much more exciting than that though... I decided to pick up
@bhyde's Edge Pro Apex because he gave me a hell of a deal!
He even threw in eight of the aluminum blanks and some polishing tapes! I've already started to mod it, lol. I picked up a quick-change spring to make swapping stones easier, a couple magnets to make holding knives in place easier while I have the gimpy left arm, and a drill stop collar to maintain a set angle. I also picked up a bunch of sandpaper in various grits as I had a bunch of DLT Trading credit to use, as well as an AngleCube so I can set the edges on all my knives so as to be very easily maintained with the Spyderco Sharpmaker. I'm been having a blast with the system so far. I definitely need more practice, but I have been quickly improving. I've just been using it on cheap kitchen knives and a couple of my cheap folders as I don't want to mess up any of my decent knives, but I imagine I'll be making that leap before too long. I'm also giving a little thought to picking up the Small Knife Attachment as I tend to like knives with blades in the 2.75" - 3.25" range.
After that, I was checking out the Sierra Trading Post that just recently opened up in town in hopes of finding a cheap Mora so I could practice sharpening a Scandinavian grind before my buddy trades me his Bushcraft. Seems I was in luck as they had several different models under $15, including a Craftline Pro S for $8 and a Craftline Pro C for $9. I picked up the stainless Sandvik model as I already have a carbon Opinel... And because I found a Svord Peasant Mini with carbon steel at STP for $11 while I was there. It's even in my fiance's favorite color (well, it's mauve instead of purple, but it's close). Unfortunately, I found that the Edge Pro doesn't handle the grinds on neither the Svord nor the Mora very well. I tried using the Edge Pro stones as bench stones, but they are just too small and become clogged too quickly when taking off so much steel. Oh well... That just gives me an excuse to pick up a cheap system or combo stone to break into freehand sharpening! Right now I'm trying to decide between the Smith's 400/600/1000 grit Tri-Hone and the Norton Crystolon 100/280 grit Combo stone. I have a
thread about it in the maintenance/tinkering section, but I'm leaning towards picking up the Norton and using fine grit sandpaper and a strop with compound to finish the blade. I know I could just use sandpaper for everything, but that sounds like a pain in the butt and not very cost effective in the long-run. Anyways... without further ado, here are the two new additions to my collection.
Last but not least... After almost as much error as trial, I've made some progress on the Opinel No. 7. The first time around, I used pure Tung Oil but it turned out a little splotchy and not as rich as I was hoping, so I sanded all that off and started over. I honestly could have spent more time refining the handle and blade shape, but I did it all by hand with sandpaper and that crap is time consuming and I was excited to see if the blade/handle treatments I had planned would work. For the forced patina on the blade, I used petroleum jelly and lemon juice. For the handle, I used Fiebing's Mahogany Pro Leather Dye and Formby's Tung Oil for the finish. It's obviously not perfect, but this was a learning exercise, and on that aspect, I consider it wildly successful. For instance... I learned it's better to suspend the blade in lemon juice instead of dribbling lemon juice on the blade if you want a uniform pattern.
Right now I'm kind of split as to where to take it from here. I plan on doing a little more shaping of the blade... But other than that, I'm either going to apply another three or four coats of Tung Oil and then sand it down with really fine grit sandpaper for a hand polished look and call it good. Or I'm going to sand all/most the leather dye off and add a groove to the bottom of the handle so I can pinch open the blade and then refine the handle shape a little more before reapplying the dye/finish all over again. I may even decide to sand down the blade and redo the patina. The zebra stripes are a bit much, but when your four year old niece is in town and says you should do "horse stripes", you do horse stripes damnit!
I guess that's about it. I purchased a Kershaw Leek Composite online the other day and I have a pre-order in for the copper Natrix, so I'll have a couple "new knife day" posts here soon.
I'm also going back and forth over a Kershaw Skyline in Alabama Damascus for $69 over at KershawGuy, but I should probably sell a few knives first...
There are only a couple more knives on my sub $100 list left to pick up and then I'll be slowly breaking into the $100 - $200 range. I'm pretty excited to pick up a Mini Griptilian, Paramilitary 2 and a Manix 2.
*Edit
Picked up the Skyline with Damascus steel because you only live once, or something like that.
