All About Pocket Knives

I know you all have done this: for reasons you can't explain, you click "Buy It Now" on a lot of manky looking knives . . . inadequate descriptions, surplus to requirements, unclear whether they function or not. But, the price is looow and you figure, "if only one of them works out, the price is . . .well . . . Ok." And then suddenly you have committed to buy and the knives are on their way to you. This knife came to me in such a lot. Thrown in a zip lock with four other knives, all with various states of rust, goo, scratches and abuse. BUT, and this is a big "But" the knives all worked, there were no seriously broken pieces, nothing that appears to need fabrication AND the knife below looked like a good candidate for trying out some exterior polishing, without taking the thing apart.

Here's the knife "before" :
I took a long strip of 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper and buffed the handles. Then I took some Flitz and a cotton cloth and had at the main blade. The discolorations were tough and so after two tries with the Flitz, I tried a dry buffing wheel on a Dremmel. That helped a little. Then I tried the 1000 grit sandpaper on the main blade: cautiously at first, because I don't know what the heck I am doing. The sandpaper didn't seem to be beating up the blade too badly so I applied the elbow grease until the stains receded and hit it again with the Flitz.

Then I opened the screwdriver/stripper. It was caked with some kind of black gunk. Adhesive? Dried paint? Epoxy? Hard to tell. For this stuff I decided to dispense with the abrasives and try some Goo Gone. I'm sure someone out there is shaking his head and wondering about the nooby, but it actually worked quite well. All told the gunk-removal took under 10 minutes. I then wiped the blade dry with a paper towel. I then returned to the handles with some Flitz to see if they couldn't be shined up a bit. The sandpaper had left them smooth, but the Delrin didn't have any of the "pop" you see in new Micarta, for instance. To my surprise, the Flitz did great on the handles. I then spent about five minutes with a whetstone putting an edge on the main blade and called it good. Overall time: about 50 minutes, and you all will laugh but I feel proud as a new poppa. Looking at it now, I goobered one side of the main blade on the whetstone and left a scratch in the surface. But I will address that another day. I'd refer to this as a non-destructive foray into pocket knife restoration.

Here are the after pix:
All in all, not bad for a knife costing under $5.00 and a first attempt at fixing up this useful tool. Also in the plastic bag was my first Camco Barlow -- rust on the blade and generally in need of some TLC. That is a project for another day . . . Thanks to all who provided tips/suggestions. A drop of Ballistol on the hinges and we are good to go.

Flangster -- If you plan to keep this up, (buying lots) you need to get yourself an Ultra-Sonic cleaner. Best thing since Mrs. Fields cookies for cleaning knives (or anything else, really).

I'll second that! Ultrasonics are a worthy investment. And the knife looks pretty darn good! You gotta a right o be proud.

Not bad for your first rehab!
Goo Gone is great stuff! I have a big bottle in my shop and 1 or 2 smaller bottles around the shop. I use it a lot!
Sonic cleaners are great! I have a couple and I do use them a lot!

You are starting down a long dark path, repairing knives!
Soon you will not care about buying new knives, you will sell your safe queens to buy old beat up knives you can restore.
Knife repair and restoration is much more addicting than merely collecting pretty shinny new knives!

The difference between before and after is amazing! While I don't mind a bit of age in my vintage knives there is certainly something very rewarding in making a knife look newer than when you bought it.

I had a problem with mine in that the screwdriver didn't lock up; turned out that the liner lock was a bit too tall and spring was weak. I took a Dremel grinding wheel and ground down the liner lock part that goes under the tang until it went over farther, it was not enough to give a solid lock so I took pliers and bent the liner a bit to give it more spring, now it locks when I open it.

OhCanada -- Welcome to AAPK. Glad to have you aboard.