A better solution for broken blade tips...

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TennesseeTime
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A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

I've been developing a way to restore missing blade tips - NOT by grinding blades down to the point of the break (a method that always made me cringe thinking about) but by actually restoring the tip itself. This procedure has ups and downs, but mostly ups if you'd rather keep the original length of your blade. It also has advantages over having a new blade installed, as one can retain the original tang stamp (if the blade has one). Furthermore, the knife doesn't need to come apart so fragile original handle materials can remain intact if the knife is collectible.

I carry a wartime Camillus Navy/Coast Guard utility knife that at one time was missing about 1/4" of the main blade. I use this knife all the time, (although I don't "abuse" it). It has held up through lots and lots of box openings and the like, and even cutting big fat juicy steak, with no problem. The only real complaint with this procedure is that temper in the repaired area of the blade may be lost, but I would imagine the blade could be re-annealed and tempered once the repair is done if somebody wanted to disassemble the knife and have somebody do that.

Here is a before/after of one Old Timer knife I did awhile back...this is one of the first ones I tried my procedure on, and the repair is faintly visible, but one must admit it looks 100% better than it did before with a broken tip. The afore-mentioned Camillus doesn't show where the repair was done at all.
IMG_1035_LI.jpg
IMG_1051.JPG


And here is my Camillus- this blade was missing almost 1/4" of its tip (from the large main blade) at one time...
IMG_0991.JPG
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TripleF »

Very knice! How'd ya do it?
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by btrwtr »

Nice looking repair. If using a weld type repair I think this would definitely change the blade temper. I don't know how you could return the entire blade, repair portion included, back to the original hardness.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by montemojo »

Welcome to AAPK Tennessee Time, thats a good looking fix.how did you do it? Inquiring minds want to know

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TennesseeTime
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

Hi guys, to answer the "how'd you do it?" question, I'll start by saying that I'm a jeweler by trade- In my shop I have a laser welder which I've been using for years to fuse gold, silver, and different types of steel (among other metals). I noticed a couple of years back when repairing eyeglasses that some metals welded better than others. The expensive, exotic eyeglass frames made of various titanium alloys were more problematic than plain old heavy, steel frames. I observed that the less expensive steel frames rarely if ever break once welded. As you can imagine, eyeglasses are constantly being twisted and flexed back and forth. So it got me to thinking about other things I could do with the laser welder. It is particularly good at fusing metals of thickness of 1/8th of an inch and less, a size which includes a lot of pocket knife blades.
As far as metal temper goes, the process shouldn't affect the existing blade dramatically outside of the immediate area where the pieces are fused. This is because the heat normally associated with welding simply isn't produced by the laser welder. (In fact, both pieces of metal are typically held in your hand as you're welding them- if they got hot enough to affect temper that wouldn't be the case, obviously). The pieces heat up moderately via conductive thermal transfer (far more prevalent when working with silver), but nowhere near the 400 degrees or so required to affect temper. The laser weld is typically only a fraction of a millimeter in size and most of the heat dissipates quickly after the laser "shot".
This obviously doesn't account for the area of the weld itself, and if the piece being replaced is very large it cannot account for that section without re-tempering the entire blade, but I suppose that can be done if you're willing to disassemble the knife.
The biggest advantages are, particularly in the case of a collectible knife, that you can retain your original tang stamp and avoid disassembly, great for a display piece or even light to moderate use. Obviously the biggest advantage is over the "grinding down" process which shortens a blade, forever altering its appearance. The Camillus shown above is used (judiciously) almost daily by me and has yet to falter or seriously dull even after cutting open cardboard boxes quite a bit. I can still slice paper with it many months after having it professionally sharpened shortly after replacing 1/4" of the tip, although I'll admit that after so many boxes opened it doesn't shave my arm hair any longer.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by Colonel26 »

I thought when I first read your post that you were probably using a laser welder. A friend of mine had a shotgun that was immaculate except for one side of the receiver where it had become pitted. He had the pits laser welded and then the gun reblued. It looked as good as new.

I'd never have thought of using it on a pocket knife. Very cool!

So do you weld the broken piece back on or do you build it up with a different piece of metal and grind it to shape?
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

Colonel, In the case of the Old Timer pictured above, I experimented just building the tip back using tiny jewelry saw blades made of carbon steel, although when I did the Camillus I used a piece of a high carbon steel reciprocating saw blade I ground to shape...this made it easier requiring fewer laser shots and less finish grinding and I feel like it was stronger to boot.

Funny you mention the pitting because I also used the laser to address some pitted areas on the Camillus blade which was rusted pretty badly in a couple of spots. Basically it just allows one to "fill in the holes" rather than grinding the surface down to the level of the bottoms of said holes. I use this procedure a lot on badly gouged areas of stainless steel and gold Rolex and other high-end watch cases. This avoids the need to remove a lot of metal from the case to polish out the damage, something which has been done for decades that can greatly devalue a watch.

Strangely, I found the most challenging thing was getting the new part of the blade ground on the sides to match the angle of the existing blade. The trick is to avoid removing material from the existing part of the blade if at all possible. I accomplish this with a reductive abrasive approach and patience, just like I do with jewelry.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by just bob »

Truly amazing. 2 things. How much does a welder like you use cost? and you also forgot to give us the address to send knives to for repair. Only kidding you would no doubt be swamped. Nice work and thank you for sharing.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

Hi Bob, the particular welder I use is no longer manufactured but similar ones from other companies run in the neighborhood of $30,000. If you've got a blade you need fixed please feel free to shoot me an email at tntime@comcast.net . I'd be happy to have a look at it. I am actually wanting to try to do more of these types of repairs to get more use of my welder. If I get too busy I'll hire some help around here LOL. Please include some pictures if you can. My name is Andy.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by btrwtr »

Thanks for the post and explanation. Very nice work!
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by muskrat man »

I've been using the services of a fellow who has a laser welder for a while now. It's precise enough to fix the tiny chips in Schrade switchblade tang where the sear engages that prevent them from locking up tight. It's not cheap but it sure helps them lockup good. I tend to stay away from having any welding done in front of the tang though.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by SteelMyHeart85420 »

Good job. I'd bet that repair would hold up to 90% of what I use pocketknives for, and if I repaired a rarer or collectible knife (more likely), it'd be retired, anyway. Probably just replace a "normal" user, like my newer, vanilla Case 6375 Stockman
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

muskrat man wrote:I've been using the services of a fellow who has a laser welder for a while now. It's precise enough to fix the tiny chips in Schrade switchblade tang where the sear engages that prevent them from locking up tight. It's not cheap but it sure helps them lockup good. I tend to stay away from having any welding done in front of the tang though.
It's not for everybody or every situation. From a user's perspective, no doubt the best thing is to completely replace the blade with a new, tempered one. From a collector's perspective, it's a great alternative to losing an original tang stamp, and won't devalue your knife further by going with a non-original blade. I don't do annealing/tempering but I'd be interested to know if somebody could take one of these repaired blades and re-temper it entirely. I'll leave that to somebody more well-versed in that department.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

SteelMyHeart85420 wrote:Good job. I'd bet that repair would hold up to 90% of what I use pocketknives for, and if I repaired a rarer or collectible knife (more likely), it'd be retired, anyway. Probably just replace a "normal" user, like my newer, vanilla Case 6375 Stockman
Hi Steel - It has been my experience with the repaired Camillus that it holds up pretty well cutting open boxes, cleaning dirt from under my nails, and other various things, but I admittedly don't try to use it to open crates. My guess is it's something like that which caused it to break in the first place... 8)
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by Bill DeShivs »

I'm sure you will be deluged with requests to weld new blades on old tangs.
While your post references user knives, doing this on collector knives is referred to as "counterfeiting" and is frowned on in the collector community.
Used judiciously, by honest and reputable repair persons-laser welding can be a great tool.
In unscrupulous hands, laser welding can be detrimental to the hobby.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

Bill DeShivs wrote:I'm sure you will be deluged with requests to weld new blades on old tangs.
While your post references user knives, doing this on collector knives is referred to as "counterfeiting" and is frowned on in the collector community.
Used judiciously, by honest and reputable repair persons-laser welding can be a great tool.
In unscrupulous hands, laser welding can be detrimental to the hobby.
Not sure if you were inferring anything toward myself directly, but since you don't know me I'll state for the record that "counterfeiting" or engaging in "unscrupulous" or unlawful behavior has and never will be my intent, regardless of whether I do ten such procedures or ten thousand in the future.
In posting this, I wanted to share a discovery that I was excited about, a procedure that allowed me to enjoy a few interesting but broken knives I had laying around. As a businessman responsible for making my own way in the world, I can also see benefit in offering the service to others. In the event I get swamped with requests to fix broken blade tips I am in business to oblige, same as if somebody walks into my shop with a broken piece of jewelry.
I am perfectly willing to acknowledge your point that some people are indeed dishonest....but reciprocate if you will and consider which repairs, in your professional opinion, should be deemed kosher or "honest" and which should not.
Is this type of repair different from a collector's standpoint than the gentleman earlier who described having someone use the laser to rebuild the back of the tang to improve the function of his automatic (many automatics are quite collectible I've noticed)? Now I don't know that fellow but I'll assume he is on the up-and-up and discloses the nature of the repair to potential buyers... but let's say he does the repair for someone who sells it, intentionally failing to make such disclosure? Or let's assume he does the repair for an upstanding honest guy who dies 6 months later and the knife is inherited by an unwitting non-enthusiast who knows nothing about the alteration, posted to eBay as part of an estate settlement?
Or what about somebody who innocently replaces a worn or missing cover or rivet or spring with a new one that is visually identical to the original one, a repair only 1 in a hundred experts, if that many, would ever notice? These repairs, among others I'm sure, are probably far more concealable than welding on a piece of a blade.
At the end of the day, it's all about what the owner of any collectible does with it, whether he chooses to misrepresent it when selling it. That falls on him or her, not the person who, in good faith, repaired it to the best of his ability.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by Bill DeShivs »

I was not inferring that you were doing anything untoward.
I was cautioning that this method CAN be used for nefarious purposes, and cautioning you to be aware.
Repairing a knife is one thing. Taking a destroyed knife and welding on a new blade is not repair.
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Mauro Mario
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by muskrat man »

Bill DeShivs wrote:I'm sure you will be deluged with requests to weld new blades on old tangs.
While your post references user knives, doing this on collector knives is referred to as "counterfeiting" and is frowned on in the collector community.
Used judiciously, by honest and reputable repair persons-laser welding can be a great tool.
In unscrupulous hands, laser welding can be detrimental to the hobby.
The prime reason I stay away from welding in front of the tang!

It's not my place to tell you what to do TT, but welding new blades to tangs does not fall in the realm of repair. Every honest knife repairmen that I know of that has the ability to weld refuse to do so in front of the tangstamp. Repairing a worn tang so a blade snaps or locks again is far different than taking a rare knife with a broken blade and welding a new full blade to that old rare tangstamp. A tang repair can increase the value 20-50% a rare knife with perfectly full blades that were put on with hard to detect welds would probably add 200-500% to the value to an unsuspecting buyer.

I (nor I think Bill) were inferring anything about you, your business or your character. Though, in the end it will be YOU who makes the choice and that comes down to what kind of person you are when you are confronted with a questionable request . We are just pointing out the unwritten rules of knife repair in case you were not aware of what most of the knife community consider acceptable.

As you stated it is impossible to know what the intentions of the owner are, or the fact the owner will not live forever and eventually the knife will re-enter circulation. That is why as repairmen it is important we keep the jobs ethical, not meant to deceive and mark our work so future generations can take a glance and know whether the knife has been altered by a repairman in the past. There is no foolproof way but we must do all we can.

EDIT: Looks like Bill beat me to a response
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by deo-pa »

Let's not get carried away on the ethics of knife repair and instead focus on what a fantastic job Tennessee has done and what a boon his skill set is to our hobby. If Tennessee decides to pursue blade repair as a business I'm sure he will come up with a way to do it ethically. It could be anything from a simple "Certificate of Repair" to laser etching his initials microscopically into the repaired area. Thereafter, the ethics is out of his hands and in ours.

Of course an unscrupulous eBay seller might take advantage of Tennessee's work. The real question is whether the serious knife collector (such as we AAPK members) discloses nearly invisible repairs. I suspect we will given how many AAPK sellers mention even the smallest pin crack or handle scratch in their listings.

Every antique has the same issues. The innards of old clocks often contain a slip of paper that records the name, date, and work done by the experts who've touched it. The value of damaged antique silver is greatly enhanced by small repairs and such repairs are widely accepted as a completely legitimate way to preserve an object. The Louvre did not replace the missing arms on the Venus de Milo but they have plenty of masterpiece paintings that have undergone invisible restoration.

A common rule of thumb is to never restore an object beyond its original condition. In restoring some ceramics is is acceptable to use colored fillers to replace chipped areas but it is never acceptable to glaze an area that was mistakingly left unglazed on the original. Thus, it is a acceptable (in fact desirable) to replace the tip on a broken blade but not acceptable to try and make a poorly struck tang stamp look better.

Full speed ahead Tennessee!

Dennis
(For some interesting reading Google "the ethics of antique repair.")
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

I'll start by saying that all of your comments are appreciated and the weight of them strongly considered...

Furthest from my mind when I posted this was any intention of stepping on the toes of those who repair knives professionally or otherwise, or to introduce a method by which dishonest people can increase the value of a rare knife and thereby realize higher prices via non-disclosure. I actually agree with all of you that such a procedure can (and typically will) be abused.

I am completely on-board with the idea of a repair registry and am willing to keep a personal log or enter data into a public database for more valuable knives that come my way. Still, I'm thinking that can be navigated around by crafty people, as can a microscopic mark if they know what to look for - All they'd have to do is take the knife apart and buff it off. Only way I see around this is to serialize knives as they do Rolex watches, and of course would have had to have been done originally when the knife was made, so the idea is a moot point for knives already floating around out there.

I know one thing for sure which I stated in my initial posting: I absolutely cringe at the thought of grinding a blade down, shortening it to less than it was originally. I'm only slightly more thrilled with the idea of totally replacing the blade with a reproduction, which doesn't bother me as much if there was no tang stamp to begin with and if the blade is an identical or very close match, but as a collector of a LOT of things from cars to guns to vintage watches and everything in between, the art of proper restoration is to return something as closely as possible to original, correct condition. In the case of a pocket knife missing the tip of its blade, I'd personally much rather just replace the damaged area and retain the original tang stamp, whether the knife is particularly valuable or not. So many times the mark on the tang is the only reference to when and/or where the knife may have been made. Once the tang is gone so is our reference to what it told us about the knife.

Muskrat Man- I want to apologize in front of God and everybody if I dragged you into this discussion - I was admittedly using your example to make a point earlier and in no way meant to imply you're doing anything shifty. Still, I'll say that as a total novice on automatic knives (I only own one but you should see it, a Schrade Presto Hawkbill), it would be very easy for me to be completely unaware if I was buying an altered or repaired knife because I wouldn't know what to look for. If you finish the repair down well enough it might be impossible to detect even if I did know what to look for. To me that's not much different (in principle, added potential value notwithstanding) from what my procedure offers, even though your procedure is behind the tang and mine is in front. If anything, it may be easier to detect a blade repair because it is out in the open and easily scrutinized. Personally, I would rather own a knife you worked on versus owning one that didn't function properly, regardless of value. What good would it be to own a '57 T-bird if you were worried about blowing the original air out of the original dry-rotted tires, after all?
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by muskrat man »

TennesseeTime wrote:I'll start by saying that all of your comments are appreciated and the weight of them strongly considered...

Furthest from my mind when I posted this was any intention of stepping on the toes of those who repair knives professionally or otherwise, or to introduce a method by which dishonest people can increase the value of a rare knife and thereby realize higher prices via non-disclosure. I actually agree with all of you that such a procedure can (and typically will) be abused.

I am completely on-board with the idea of a repair registry and am willing to keep a personal log or enter data into a public database for more valuable knives that come my way. Still, I'm thinking that can be navigated around by crafty people, as can a microscopic mark if they know what to look for - All they'd have to do is take the knife apart and buff it off. Only way I see around this is to serialize knives as they do Rolex watches, and of course would have had to have been done originally when the knife was made, so the idea is a moot point for knives already floating around out there.

I know one thing for sure which I stated in my initial posting: I absolutely cringe at the thought of grinding a blade down, shortening it to less than it was originally. I'm only slightly more thrilled with the idea of totally replacing the blade with a reproduction, which doesn't bother me as much if there was no tang stamp to begin with and if the blade is an identical or very close match, but as a collector of a LOT of things from cars to guns to vintage watches and everything in between, the art of proper restoration is to return something as closely as possible to original, correct condition. In the case of a pocket knife missing the tip of its blade, I'd personally much rather just replace the damaged area and retain the original tang stamp, whether the knife is particularly valuable or not. So many times the mark on the tang is the only reference to when and/or where the knife may have been made. Once the tang is gone so is our reference to what it told us about the knife.

Muskrat Man- I want to apologize in front of God and everybody if I dragged you into this discussion - I was admittedly using your example to make a point earlier and in no way meant to imply you're doing anything shifty. Still, I'll say that as a total novice on automatic knives (I only own one but you should see it, a Schrade Presto Hawkbill), it would be very easy for me to be completely unaware if I was buying an altered or repaired knife because I wouldn't know what to look for. If you finish the repair down well enough it might be impossible to detect even if I did know what to look for. To me that's not much different (in principle, added potential value notwithstanding) from what my procedure offers, even though your procedure is behind the tang and mine is in front. If anything, it may be easier to detect a blade repair because it is out in the open and easily scrutinized. Personally, I would rather own a knife you worked on versus owning one that didn't function properly, regardless of value. What good would it be to own a '57 T-bird if you were worried about blowing the original air out of the original dry-rotted tires, after all?

I took absolutely no offense to you referencing my post. Granted most welding I have seen that was done in front of the tang is quite visible (at least to me) and obvious that the knife has been tampered with but there have been examples, some of which have been shown on AAPK over the years where the welding was next to invisible (at least in the photos).

Welding is just a touchy subject and sometimes a slippery slope in the knife community. There are those who scorn it to the utmost, and there is a small handful that don't particularly give a damn as long as the knife looks good. Then there are those of us that walk that fine line that use it but only within certain limits.
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Re: A better solution for broken blade tips...

Post by TennesseeTime »

Most of the dozen or so that I've worked on over the past year or two have been slightly noticeable. My Camillus was an exception and I'm not sure
if it was simply that the patch material was such a good match or if it was because I was forced to refinish so much of the blade as it was very rusty and it just blended in better. Even for the ones I've done with a slightly visible demarcation, the customers have been very happy for the most part because they, like I, felt like any tip was better than no tip or a ground-down tip. I have in all cases promised (and delivered) a 95% invisible weld joint. The Camillus was just a fluke I suppose in that even I couldn't tell by looking at it.
I haven't done any knives that I felt were of serious value. One Case may have been a $250 knife and to my knowledge is the most collectible one I've done. It was missing a very tiny piece, probably less than 1/16" of the tip and I completely rebuilt it. I charged $50 for the repair so maybe the guy got his money's worth I don't know. It was his father's knife and I doubt he will ever want to sell it although who knows what happens after he is gone. His exhibited a slightly darker color on the replaced tip, almost looked like an area of tarnish to me.
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