Here is a pic of the knife...



It was double cut using a glass bead blast process which did'nt go entirely to plan.My friend who did the job borrowed the use of a machine and the guy who owned it had not cleaned out the draw where the dust collects...the extractor must have been over heating and eventually caused a blow out of the electrics.

On this side of the blade there are some cosmetic marks...not sure what caused them...here is a closer pic...



Anyone a machinist who knows what causes these marks...please chime in...my friend said that the steel was so hard he thought perhaps this caused the markings from "beads" shattering...I have no idea...

On the other side of the blade the job did'nt get the chance to be fully finished...here is a pic...



On this side of the blade when I had stripped off the paint there was a much darker coating than on the "logo" side and this was much harder to remove. It left the blade pitted as if it had been "sandblast" applied...here are some comparison pics of the knife when stripped and after a good bit of sanding.

This is the pitted side...



and this is the logo side which had a lighter and less troublesome coating



Here are the same sides now after being treated





The blade sides are now certainly D/C sufficient to take the glare effect off the steel and serve their purpose in that respect but the knife could do with going back to be properly finished. However...for now I want to keep it as is and give it some fair old use testing it and see how the finish holds up.

A lot of battoning might be interesting as it could help smooth out the pitted areas. Overall though the main reason for keeping it and using it for now is that I had a good edge on the knife and lost it due to the blast process....it now has a marvelous edge on it and I want to get the benefit of this labour before sending it back to get finished off! If it goes back dull and blunt then no worries as it would end up like that anyway.

The fun is in how it performs...at least for me...but those contemplating stripping jobs might find this of interest. These new processes certainly make it harder to get a balanced effect on the strip job...especially with two different treatments each side...sort of makes you wonder if this was deliberately done?

I don't know very much about bead blasting, but from the looks of that
knife, you might have to get ahold of the Busse Custom Shop for advice.

All the best man!

Those custom mods you guys do on your knives are fantastic!
They really look good when they come out right,
but when they come out bad.... Youch.
Man,I wish I had the gonads to do that to one of my knives,
but that would be like letting my wife cook a
perfectly good Smoked Ham. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Im sure there is something they can do to fix that for you.
Please let us know what you find out.

Interesting finish you've got going on there, Steel Fan. I'm no machinist, but I've done a fair amount of bead blasting on old steel wheels for my car, as well as softer materials at a machine shop that I worked at. Given that glass is quite a bit harder than even hardened steel, I doubt the finish turned out uneven due to glass beads shattering. If that were the case, I don't know how Busse would ever get the DC finish in the first place. To me, it just looks like the uneven area was just not blasted quite enough. Either that or it was blasted with some really dirty medium that stained it (not sure if that's even possible). Like I said though, I'm not a machinist, so I may be wrong. Hopefully it all gets fixed somehow (either a complete DC finish or recoat).

I don't know that much about Bead Blasting either. It does look like it might could use another treatment though. Although if it's a user it probably doesn't really matter all that much, just take it out and play with it some and then clean'er up afterwords and see how she looks. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

SF,

I don't know much at all about bead blasting. But, I have stripped and satin finished quite a few Busse and kin blade.


To me, these marks (Very hypothetical guess on my part) look like heat marks. Is it possible that the sandblasting could cause excessive friction heat in an area to make marks like this - Maybe if holding the blasting media in one are for too long?



If those marks have damaged the heat-treatment in any way, I don't think they should have any adverse affects on the function of the knife as the marks are in an area far away from the edge - not too much unlike differential heat treating.

But, if those are heat marks, they will likely be hard to get rid of short of re-heat-treating the entire blade. (????) .... I could be wrong.

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To me, these marks just look like typical INFI dimples and pits that are under the coating where they have not yet been completely removed.





I am pretty confident that Busse actually does some finish work on the pitted blades to get them closer to smooth/satin prior to bead-blasting. I have seen quite a few dimpled and pitted blades that I would think would take forever to get a decent finish by bead-blasting the pits to smooth. I think you need to grind first till at least near smooth. Then bead blast. (????)


My guess is this more heavily pitted side:



really should have been run through a belt grinder a bit prior to bead-blasting.

Also, I think I can still see grind marks on this pitted side even after bead-blasting:




So, my guess is the pitted side didn't get near the bead-blasting time as the other side even though the pitted side probably needed more work.

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For the record, most Busse and kin blades I have seen seem to be more uniform on each side under the coating = than yours. But, I don't know that I would consider yours being "un"-uniform as shocking or a surprise either.

Busse can be "like a box of chocolates" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

.

Thanks guys for the help here...it is much appreciated. The knife is very much intended to be a user so it's not required to win beauty contests...but the purpose of stripping and going for a double cut finish is to enable a hard use knife to be "kept well" and to appear looked after...so it will get done again.

I know I have the belts available to take off the D/C and bring the knife to a mirror finish if need be by using the belt sander...but that can take a lot of steel out of the blade...the other way is laborious but using a simple electric sander can get rid of the infi marks if need be...I have done that on a skinny ash before...it just takes a while...anyway...we will see how it goes.

The aspect of "dirty media" strikes me as true...if the draw on the machine was not cleaned out...there is every liklihood the media was past it's sell by date.

This friend though is pretty well into knives and was the original importer of custom knives into the UK...he has re-done my Vought knife three times in the past with no problems...but I think it is truely down to the finish you start with before double cutting. I should have given him a better finish before he started...no worries though...that can easily be sorted for next time.

These trials and learning curves are all part of the "knowledge" that you acquire and benefit from in the long run...ultimately I could afford a CG NMFBM...and I could'nt have sprung for an LE version...so learning the DIY route is the only way to go...

I think most of it's been well covered before, and I'm no blasting expert by far (I've only stayed at a Holiday Inn), but I think it does come down to the surface prep and time on the blaster.

From what I've done with firearms preps for finishing and parkerizing, it can get to a point you miss something you thought you covered "enough". One of the other factors can be the feed/return of the material when you're blasting - spending time on an area but not getting the same volume of blasting material dispersing.

A little hand prep time with just some 400 grit and good medium and flow will probably be enough.

It looks nice though - especially for an intended user. Always a work in process.