Old Hickory Blade Mods, my mod plus questions.

B

Balls Deep

Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Messages
342
Hey Everyone. After checking out the forums on bush knife reccomendations and seeing the 7" Old Hickory Butcher knife pop up over and over again as a good option I picked one up. The modifications I made were pretty straightforward:

1. Pop off scales
2. wet Sand metal under scales with wd-40 - like most noted there was indeed a fair amount of rust under the scales.
3. Sand handle scales to make them less blocky
4. Treat scales with boiled linseed oil - I did 3 coats
5. Hit the blade with bore cleaner to remove any unseen particles
6. Epoxy the treated scales back onto the blade and attach the original rivits.
7. Polish blade with high grit sand paper and hand sharpen on wet stone up to 6000 grit.

It was a pretty easy process and had pretty good results, I'll post pictures when I can but it's really nothing fancy. What I'm especially curious about though is folks who have ground the blade down to 5" or so and shaped it into a kephart blade shape. I feel like that amount of grinding would ruin the temper on the blade given the massive amount of sparks and heat that must be generated. Has anyone had experience grinding these blades into different shapes, and if so have you noticed whether or not the temper appeared to be affected?
 
A hack saw and file would be an option, though doesn't really answer the question as to whether or not grinding affects temper when modifying old hickory knives. I do appreciate the response though.
 
Like almost every question: the answer to your question is.... it depends.

If you remove that much steel with an angle grinder in 2 minutes, you've probably screwed the temper up royally in the area around what was ground. The trick when using power tools on blade steel is to go slowly and keep touching the blade with your hand. If its too hot to touch, cool it off. Keeping lots of water around is highly highly recommended. Its pretty easy. I still recommend a hacksaw and a file, you'll get much better results with the slower pace handtools force.
 
And really cool idea modding one into a kephart, I hadn't seen that before but I do have one of those butchers in my kitchen that might need to get cut down.
 
If you use hand tools, you don't have anything to worry about as far as destroying the temper. When using power tools, like EricV said, you run the risk. If you want to use a power tool to modify it, make one pass, dunk in water, one pass, dunk in water.
 
Keep in mind that to temper a knife for the first time, it's usually held at around 400 degrees (that's very hot) for hours to drop the hardness just a couple Rc points...
Not only that but it takes a decent amount of time even at 1400-1700 degrees during heat treat to "soak" the knife which allows the crystalline doctor to form, it doesn't form/deform instantly. The quench just locks this state in statis.

It's easy to overheat or even burn a knife with power tools, but it's also very easy to keep that blade below 400 degrees. A few hundred degrees for a free minuets never hurt any temper...
 
AntDog said:
If you use hand tools, you don't have anything to worry about as far as destroying the temper. When using power tools, like EricV said, you run the risk. If you want to use a power tool to modify it, make one pass, dunk in water, one pass, dunk in water.
Click to expand...


^^^This

Keep a cup/bucket of water right under the belt sander/grinding wheel and swipe the knife straight down the wheel into the water.

Finish with a file and sandpaper since you *may* have overheated it a sixteenth or so in, especially on a thin tip.

It's much more of an issue doing an edge with power tools as opposed to shaping the spine. 'Taint hard.
 
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