Knife Wonder: Shrade 881 rehab

Couldn't resit this little guy at the flee market yesterday for $5, playing with some ideas on how to clean it up (take it apart? just clean it?)

before pictures:

It didn't look very good, I'll grant you, but those scales are lovey and the blades opened, better then some, even if they didn't "snap"

main blade clearly broken off but the sheepfold didn't look rith either on closer inspection

Dated it to the 1973-2004 tang stamp, certainly after the 50's when they stopped using bone on the scales, so this is jigged plastic of some kind, feel nice and look Schrade pretty to me

not easy to get this picture, probably for the best :p

lots of pitting and scratches on bolsters

rust in joints

don't you think it's pretty though?


thinking time

During:

I had a friend in mind for this knife (excuse to buy it = found) he likes stockmans and well, it's old and pretty. Anyway I hadn't re-ground blades before, but I used a simple dremel grinding tool at a medium speed and a lot of water on rags and sponges and in cups to make sure it stayed cool and didn't ruin the heat treatment - basically the end of the knife FYI.

Decided the spay blade may as well get some re-grinding as well

kept the blade shape on this one but decided to 'sharpen" it up a little at it's point

I put secondary grind on the top of the blades as well, especially on the main blade as i had to point the point so far down past the original one the grind was a lot thicker here and would have made the point useless and sharpening impossible (almost) if not.

I'd already gone over it eliminating rust and such with up to 600 grit sand paper, but i was concered not to take the age off (just the old), or make ti too polished, so kept the deeper scraatches and pitting. I think it kinda looks pretty with it :)

main blade = wharncliff-y thing

I was happy with the grinding job (eliminating the grinding marks took a while but was satisfying work) but I couldn't decided if I liked the blade shape I'd given it while trying to save as much blade as possible. In the end i considered making it a tanto-ish knife since I knew my friend to like that kinda blade, but before I could try it i decided I really did like it...go figure.

the shield did get cleaned up but found a lot of deeper scratches on it which i left, guess it was always rubbing up against something in someones pocket

I sharpened it up then decided i need to do some more rehabbing, bad idea by the way, first time I'd broken the "don't work with a sharp knife unless it's covered up safely" rule. by lucky i still have all my fingers, because ti came up sharp! even for my skills, at least it meant the heat treat hadn't been ruined!

After:

What can i say, I was very happy with myself, although I couldn't decide if it looked like I had done anything!

I really liek the finished shape of the - now - pen blade

I keep notes as i work so i don't forget where I am at - I'm very forgetful - probably why i didn't lose any fingers though!

Still looked to em as if the sheepfold came over to far but it all fit

Alas even after a lot of flushing with WD40 and some other stuff I thought to try out (including Goo Gone) I couldn't get the snap back into the closing of the two smaller blades (main blade had it fine.) But the snap on opening the blades was nice and medium, so I decided it was okay, plenty of work left int eh old gal, you just have to be sure to close the blades by hand...