I took a 450$ knife to the grinder!

I finally did it. After weeks of talking about it and looking at photos of modded Busse's to get my courage up I finally took the SH-E to my old Norton grinder.

I don't think I could have done it to a new knife but since this was a user that had seen some hard use I managed to do it.

Here is a "before" photo.


Now I still have a lot of hand sanding to finish the back and handle but it looks pretty good already I think.
Here is a photo with my DFLE for comparison and my foot bacuse I am a lousy photographer.


I even polished the brass rivets and ground the sweat stains off the micarta.
I did not like the tigerstripe with the black at all but it suits the bare steel a lot better.


I am pretty stoked about how it has turned out so far and am looking forward to getting the DesertJack user from a fellow Dog.

Along with the hand sanding and blending all the edges together ,I still need to do the spine and fix the edge. I will probably just repair the stock asymmetrical edge rather than go convex.

You took a $450 dollar knife to a "Grinder".....OMG!!!!!!!what were you thinking <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />



Nice Job. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

That's a tigerstripe handle? Very cool!
I think the blade looks much better stripped.

What kind of attachment on the grinder?

It is an old Norton with a flat platen that can be removed. It is nothing fancy and cost me about 40$ but is a definite step up from the little harbour freight models. It takes 1/42 belts and sounds like a jet engine.

I think it is tigerstriped micarta ,Roo? If anyone knows different let me know?

Looks Great, Unsub! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Looks new now! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

It does look new !!!!

Time to take it out and beat it <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Looks very nice, good work.

wow! great job unsusb.
looks really good.
thanks for the pics. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Looks good, Unsub. I practiced on some old military knives before I put the belt to the Bussses. I sent some of those old screwed up military knives to some crazy dude up in Saskatchewan today. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

how do you keep the blade from heating up and ruining the temper?

I was wondering the same thing....

Me three! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Oh and can someone provide links to a good grinder?

I think it looks great.

Some large knives won't even heat up that much on a belt grinder. I keep a container of water handy and dunk the blade as needed to keep it cool. Keep the blade moving and pay close attention. Some of the small stainless knives will need to be cooled between every pass. Do serious stock removal with the coarser grits. They don't heat up the blade as fast. You are moving the blade faster with those, too, because they remove a lot of steel in a hurry. My grinder only has one speed, so I have adapted my methods to that. Otherwise, I'd slow the belt speed a little.

That looks great Unsub! You have little feet.

the knives are on a table...
his feet are on the ground... if you think the knives are on the ground and look at them next to the knife handle.. they look freaking TINY!
lol

UNsub,

MONSTER JOB!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowdown.gif" alt="" />

That looks like a completely different blade! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

Incredible job dude! That is just smokin! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I can't believe that is the same blade,I am very impressed! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />
That was just the thing to do to spruce up that sad looking user. Now it looks Elite!

Congrats on a job that is without flaw! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Peace.

Thanks guys and especially POP. My foot does look funny. It is a size 10 though.

It was the thickest knife I ever worked with and I was shocked at how slow it heated up compared to the thin ATS-34 I worked with last.

I am a perfectionist though and there is always more I want to do.

I was just kidding, That does look great it takes alot of marbles to do that to an expensive knife but now you have your own custom to carry that you can be proud of. It's kinda like putting your signature on it. That ergo handle looks pretty comfy for prolonged use too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

I think you did a beautiful job, Unsub. That's pretty knife, now.

Thanks guys ,I am really stoked about how well this is turning out. I spent last nights TV time also cleaning up the spine which because it isn't flat has to be done by hand.

I have done some amateur knifemaking last winter so I have a bit of experience with the grinder and dremel.

I can't stress enough how useful grinder belts cut into coin sized round disks and mounted in the dremel are. 40 and 80 grit disks can remove tons of material fast and I am currently using some 150 grit to take all the scratches out of the spine.

You can even put 600 to 1000 grit sandpaper over a disk and put a wicked polish on stuff. If you do long smooth strokes the full length of something it is nice and even.

The fact the SH-E I got was flat ground made things a LOT easier.

It seems a lot better balanced but that has to be my imagination. It felt like I removed a lot of metal to get the thing perfectly flat but it was probably only a few hundreds of an inch.

The points still need some grinding and I made a mess of the thumb bump on the spine as well as the finish on one side of the pommel but they can be polished out.

When I see just how much more work an LE model takes than a CG I am gobsmacked by how cheap they are. The DFLE was only about 25$ more than the CG and their is a mile of polishing. Scrapyard does do a very simple polishing job where it is up and down rather than the length of the blade. I was considering going all out with a full length hybrid polish but it looks pretty good as is and that would be a ridiculous amount of hand sanding and dremeling. At least 100 hours to do a first rate job.

My Lambert custom which is for some reason the perfect companion blade for the SH-E has a nifty polish job where the flat part of the blade is finely polished lengthwise while the edge bevel and the top false edge bevel are not as finely polished going up and down.

Everyone should own at least 1 first rate custom just to see what one man can do with a grinder. The Lambert Whar I have is not only perfectly fitted together with zero tolerance but it's made with all materials that are really difficult to work with. Carbon fibre ,titanium ,Titanuim damascus and S30V.

Here it is with that same table(no foot this time) and a HairyCarry and Chinook3.

Looks cool,nice job...

Well I did some more today on the SH-E. I have the spine and pommel polished to a nice almost mirror polish and am working hard on the flats. I decided to go all out and do a full lengthwise hybrid polish alternating directions each successive grit until hopefully I get close to the amazing job Ban does.

The edge is a freakin razor already from simply removing some from the flat of the asymmetrical side.

INFI is SO nice to work with and takes a wonderful easy polish.

Looking good Brother! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

good job on that unsub

Thanks again ,I am shocked at how nice INFI is to work with. I got a razor edge and it polishes up very fast and easy. Much easier than S7. I think it must be all those expensive alloys.

I got one side already showing a decent reflection. The dremel and the round pieces of sandpaper make things so much faster than hand sanding. I still have to finsh by hand but the amount of work is reduced drastically.

My SH-e came 7/26 so I took some pics with my BM-e.

I love this set of Ergos:


Sh-e is in almost mint condition, slight smoothing near the tip. Edge is perfect.

I love these two.

I started a thread called "show me the Ergos' on the BF Busse forum that has some great ergo porn.

I love your matching set. I need to get myself one of those BM-E's for my own set.

I have made some more progress on my SH-E. I have one side polished up to 600 grit but Putfile lost my account so I have no way to post the pics.

Once generation kill is over I will go to the other room with the big computer and try to post the new shiny photos.

INFI is a joy to work with. But watch out, it grinds fast! I have never seen a steel like it.

I added some pics to the "Show me the Ergos" at BF for you. I didn't want to get carried away here with them. =)

You're braver than I am - I just don't know if I could do that to an Ergo...yet...

Try photobucket for your pics - I've had a good experience with it.

Those are some beautiful knives.

It really helped that this SH-E was a user that has some dings so i did not feel bad about stripping her. I posted a couple on Flicker but I still have to figure out how to post them. I may just put up a link for now.

Here is one where I have got the reflection of my "WANTED" poster (the comic not the movie) in my knife. The other side is not as done but it still looks good even though it is only a lengthwise 60 grit.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28973838@N07/2706515224/in/photostream/

It is a lot of hard work getting them this shiny even with a dremel and band grinder. You still have to do a lot by hand. The results are worth it.

A mirror polished knife would be awesome in a tactical situation because you could use it to see around corners without sticking your head out. I tried it with the SH-E and it works!

Wow! That SHe is looking great Unsub. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Chris ,I really wanted to see what you thought of it because you were one of the people who saw it's original condition. It is super sharp now as well.
I fixed the nonbeveled side the same way a machine shop would do a set of heads.
I removed enough metal so it was perfectly flat again. It bit my thumb though while I was hand sanding. Not only did I slice my thumb open I also ground some INFI dust into the wound in the process.

You have not been around for a while Chris ,have you been on vacation?

For anyone doing this themselves ,you have to make the flat sides perfectly flat by using a piece of flat stock with sandpaper on it. It is a hell of a lot easier to do this at 60 grit where you remove metal rather fast than forgetting that step until 230 grit<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" /> and having to sand forever to remove a tiny little divot or go back and do it all over again<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" />

We just had a wicked summer hail and thunderstorm like you get on the prairies every once in a while. Our big plastic garbage can with the wheels actually started floating/rolling down the street. It got 3 houses away before we caught it.