Sabre Japan 629, chatter mark repair

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Drum4fun

Joined
Mar 21, 2018
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Sirs ,swap meet pick-up …. Sabre Japan 629 Barlow
1970’s, nickel bolsters, carbon steel blade, plastic side plates. Prior owner lost control on grinder wheel on both sides of blade resulting in deep chatter marks. Keeping in mind the rule “above all else do no harm” I have attempted to remove the marks. Overall, result I give myself …a solid “B”. Lansky sharpening resulted in a nice blade edge . These easily obtained knives don’t get much financial appreciation ( $20-25 ) but make good practical every day carry tools. No regrets picking this Barlow up and returning it to service . I gave $10. How’d I do ?
Charles
https://imgur.com/a/Eqob53Q
 
Looks like a decent job so far. I would use 320 grit paper on a backing and sand it perpendicular to the length, from spine to edge. To remove more, and to conceal what’s there. Sandpaper glued to board or paint stick. Used wet preferred. I’ve cleaned up several successfully.
 
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For $10, I'd say you did good. :thumbsup:

If you're determined to clean up the chatter marks, I'd just use some relatively coarse SiC wet/dry sandpaper over a hard backing (glass or stone is best). A strip of the sandpaper cut at full-sheet length (11" - 12") and maybe 3" wide or so will give you a lot of length for some aggressive sanding passes. I lay the blade flat to the paper, with the edge of the ricasso (plunge line) just off the edge of the hard backer and riding sort of like a guide along the edge of the glass/stone, and make sanding passes perpendicular to the spine in edge-trailing fashion. Sandpaper at ~ 220-grit or coarser, maybe down to 150 or so for the deeper scratches, should work pretty fast. And something in the 220-400 grit range often emulates a factory 'satin' finish on production knives.

This is something that you can take your time with, to get the feel for it. No need to rush or force anything for a quick result. On a simple carbon steel blade, the sandpaper will show you very quickly what it'll do with the finish, with each pass on the paper. And with that knife, I'd feel no rush to 'fix' the chatter marks anyway - it looks like an honest, hard-working knife, scars and all. I tend to tinker with such things a little bit at a time with knives like these, over a long period of time, if I feel the need to fix finish issues like this.
 
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Thank you very much for the advice. I like the plan.I was worried about taking too much steel off but looks like that won’t be an issue. I will put some more time and effort in to the rehab.
 
OWE described it the way I was thinking, but better. You can take off a fair amount and it won’t be noticed. I really enjoy doing that sort of thing.
 
Well … thought I’d share views reflecting
as far as I’d like to take it with this blade.
Don’t want to mis-lead, It took a lot of
work to get to this point.
End result ( I think ) is satisfactory . Almost
like turning a carbon steel blade in to a
stainless steel finish . Due to my
inexperience I had a few restarts to
get rid of pitting , scratches and blade
divots. If any here want to undertake
this type of rehab … it takes commitment….
Good luck. 👍🏻

https://imgur.com/a/jEEK1ie
 
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Drum4fun said:
Sirs ,swap meet pick-up …. Sabre Japan 629 Barlow
1970’s, nickel bolsters, carbon steel blade, plastic side plates. Prior owner lost control on grinder wheel on both sides of blade resulting in deep chatter marks. Keeping in mind the rule “above all else do no harm” I have attempted to remove the marks. Overall, result I give myself …a solid “B”. Lansky sharpening resulted in a nice blade edge . These easily obtained knives don’t get much financial appreciation ( $20-25 ) but make good practical every day carry tools. No regrets picking this Barlow up and returning it to service . I gave $10. How’d I do ?
Charles
https://imgur.com/a/Eqob53Q
Click to expand...
If it was me, since the scratches look faairly deep... I would give the blade a bath in oxalic acid to give it a dark patina. Then give it a shake in some ceramic shards before putting a new edge on it.
 
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