Kabar T-75 rehandle.
Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 9:23 pm
Bought a T-75 at an estate sale the other day that was out-gassing pretty badly. Couldn't let it go to waste as the stainless blades were completely unaffected by the out-gassing. I have a couple of T-75's already but they have the older tang stamp(KA-BAR).
The handles looked like they were cracked ice rather than the traditional yellow but they may have just lightened up a bit. Anyway they got torn off in a hurry and the knife thoroughly cleaned.I use an old toothbrush with Mother's Mag Wheel Polish after I had scraped the residue off the liners. Noticed one of the liners had cracked from the out-gassing and the back springs which are carbon steel were pretty well corroded.Mostly surface stuff though. The crack shouldn't be a problem as the new covers will be epoxied on.
The only handle material I had at the moment was some dark blue Plexiglass which I have used before with good results so I elected to go with it.The material is just a little bit thicker than needed so the sanding was kept to a minimum.Drilled the holes for the pins and cut the pieces to fit between the bolsters. Roughed them down using my 1x30 belt sander and a couple of files.Finished up with a fine file and then 320 wet-or-dry sandpaper and buffed with the Mother's. I still have to cut the groove for the hook sharpener but that can wait. Here are some before and after shots.
The handles looked like they were cracked ice rather than the traditional yellow but they may have just lightened up a bit. Anyway they got torn off in a hurry and the knife thoroughly cleaned.I use an old toothbrush with Mother's Mag Wheel Polish after I had scraped the residue off the liners. Noticed one of the liners had cracked from the out-gassing and the back springs which are carbon steel were pretty well corroded.Mostly surface stuff though. The crack shouldn't be a problem as the new covers will be epoxied on.
The only handle material I had at the moment was some dark blue Plexiglass which I have used before with good results so I elected to go with it.The material is just a little bit thicker than needed so the sanding was kept to a minimum.Drilled the holes for the pins and cut the pieces to fit between the bolsters. Roughed them down using my 1x30 belt sander and a couple of files.Finished up with a fine file and then 320 wet-or-dry sandpaper and buffed with the Mother's. I still have to cut the groove for the hook sharpener but that can wait. Here are some before and after shots.
