Been asked a few time to post my knife modifications, don't be afraid to post yours too.
First is a 12" Old Hickory butcher that I reshaped the blade and handle, blued the blade and made a leather sheath for.
Here's the big boy with its little brother, a reshaped 4" paring knife, also Old Hickory.

I made a pocket sheath for the little guy that also holds a pen and a bic lighter, still needs a color job though
Next is a ColdSteel Pocket Bushman that I've tried something new with, blade serations.
If you look close at the white circles you can see the small serations every half inch. They worked quite well.
Next is a Tops Tracker II, the finish sanded off, blade reprofiled so back edge is a bit sharper and the front almost a skandi grind, cuts much better now. Removed the micarta handle and reshaped the handle to fit my hand, then wrapped it in a combination of cloth tape and apoxy.
I reshaped the saw back to make it much more effective but its still mostly for show.
Next is a FinnBear I rehandles in a hardwood my friend had for kitchen knife handles, it then got a Linseed soak and turned out quite well.
Last but never least my beloved Rat-7. Finish sanded off, blade and handle reshaped, blade deep blued, and a much better edge.

nice work..i have never tried to do any customizing on my knives but i could see how doing that would increase your faith in that knife doing what you asked in a real survival situation.

A grinder is great I find for removing a lot of material quickly but be very careful of overheating the steel ruining the temper. I use a 1" belt sander that I picked up for about 60$ and have everything from 80grit for fast removal to 400grit belts for finer polishing but I always finish off with 800 to 1200grit wet/dry sandpaper and a few hours of sanding to bring out the final shine.

*tip* Keep a pail or cup of water near you as you work and dunk the piece repeatedly as your working to keep the heat down.

Nice work Crogan! I never really considered ever grinding any notches in the blade to serrate it. Interesting.

I never contemplated this before seeing your picture, but looking at your spine-shot of the Tracker, it seems to me what's needed is a "dish" in the face of each tooth. Does that make sense? I mean, first, the top of the blade could be ground a little to make the top of the teeth more like an edge...but not quite that far. Then, the blade-side face of each tooth might be ground - dished - so that the leading and following edges of the teeth, on both sides of the saw, would be sharp and have a relief. I really don;t know if that would help it, but the pic got me to thinking (danger!)

The only modifications I've done to already finished knives is re-grind the edge bevel so it's steeper (i.e. grind a 30 degree secondary bevel into a 23 or 25 degree). ALso, on most knives, I use a little chainsaw sharpening bit to put a tiny choil(?) in the blade near the hilt. It may do more harm than good, I really don;t know, I just do it because it helps me to get that last bit, right up to the choil, sharpened.

Here's a picture of the mod I was writing about:

The "standard" knife makers "grinder" is a 2x72 inch belt grinder, typically with an 8" or 10" contact wheel on the bottom to do hollow grinding, and a platen above that for flat grinding

Wayne Goddard wrote a book "the $50 knife shop" - tells you how to make your own gear at a discount, and a LOT of knife makers love the book as a starting point

Making a "basic" fixed blade knife is NOT that hard - work with L-6, or O-1 or some such carbon steel, and you can do your own heat treating fairly easily. Then it's just a small matter of skill to get it right

I modified a Griptillian fixed blade last year. Believe it or not, I changed the scales! I guess it isn't a "Griptillian" anymore! This was my first re-scale project and since I was living in temporary housing, I had to do it without my tools - just a coping saw, a dremel tool and some sandpaper. I was bored! The reason I changed the scales is because I have a nasty habit of loosing knives - these should help me NOT loose this one. Unfortunately, I can't get the photos to link into this post so follow the link if you want to see it. Sorry!

Tom


Griptillian Pics

Thats an awesome job Johnny, the Griptilian looks great. I like how the scales contrast with the black blade.