Photos Rehabbing an old Police

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Apr 15, 2002
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I posted this on the Spyderco forums and am not sure whether it belongs here or in the Maintenance Tinkering & Embellishment forum. If so mods feel free to move it.


This past summer I picked up a stainless CE Police on the big auction site for about $80. It has the single position tip down right hand clip and a VG-10 blade with POLICE etched into it. There is no spyder next to the POLICE and the locking bar has a Boye detent.

When it arrived it was in rough shape. The blade was missing about 1/4 inch of its tip which had been reground, the plain edge may have gone through a pull-through type sharpener and a grinder was used to cut some random notches in the spine above the thumb hole. The first several serrations were blunt and an attempt was made to resharpen them. The clip was missing a screw and replaced with a smaller head screw. It still has some play but is pretty secure. Naturally the blade and handle were scratched up. There is slight up and down play an periodic slight side to side play in the blade but it locks securely with no issues. It opens smoothly as most stainless Spydercos do.

I used a triangle and round jewlers file to notch the handle and improve the grip which is my standard modification to stainless handled Spydercos. I put 36 half-round notches by hand for traction.

I gave up trying to sharpen it when I first got it as the edge needed serious thinning out. I finally managed to get some free time and with a sharpie and dremel i was able to get to the edge using the coarse sanding drum on the lowest speed. Then diamond rods on the sharpmaker set the bevel and i gave it 40 passes on the brown stones and white stones. I managed to get it hair shaving sharp but there were still some bad spots near the tip.

Since I have been out of the knife game for so long all I had to sharpen was my sharpmaker. Since i didn’t want to drop a couple hundred dollars on an edge pro or other professional sharpening system I picked up a Ruixin Pro rx-008 and some extra diamond stones on Amazon.

Within an hour I had a 6000 grit 30 degree inclusive edge on the knife. I still have some work to do thinning out or grinding off the bad serrations but this knife is back to life with many more years of service in it.

I am a huge fan of the older models, especially those designed as working knives. Since i no longer commercial fish full time my pocket knife does not get the workout that it used to. I still use my knife daily in law enforcement so this old Police will be going back on the job this week. It still has plenty of life left it it and cuts like it left the factory yesterday.

It is satisfying to bring an old knife someone else thought used up back to life.

Now for the pix-

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Good work, Pete. That one looks like it was almost as beat up as my Road Warrior, the slab-side SE Police I carry.
 
That is a awesome post and pictures of a knife with some history!!! Wish we new the background of it
 
Good work, Pete. That one looks like it was almost as beat up as my Road Warrior, the slab-side SE Police I carry.
I try to pick up any moderately priced Police when I can even if it takes me a few months to get to them. I absolutely love the long slim knife and with a little modification to the scales they are pretty secure even with wet hands. I would like to try some more intricate filework at some point but i wanted to get this one functional so I could carry it.
That is a awesome post and pictures of a knife with some history!!! Wish we new the background of it
Thanks cut. I have the feeling based on some of the damage to the edge and some dark spots on the blade and handle scale that it may have belonged to an electrician and it got electrocuted. Im not sure what the purpose of the grind marks in the spine is but whoever it was had screws small enough to replace the missing screw.

Whatever the backstory is the previous owner used this knife hard but it still has a lifetime of use left in it. I am going to keep working on the blade to repair or grind off the damaged serrations when i get around to it again.
 
The grind mark on the spine may be where it arced and he ground out the burn mark.
 
Thats possible. There is a dark spot above the transition point from plain to serrated edge and another one on the handle scale.

The owner did a good job of repairing the broken tip as well by grinding up from the edge instead of grinding the swedge down.
 
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