My Step-Mothers Father sadly recently passed and while cleaning his property His Wife Found a few knives of his and Gave me a beautiful Buck 107. Its seen better days and I Intend on Restoring it to useable condition. It has rust spots along the tang of the handle the What appear to be wood (They came out with Micarta handles aswell) scales are abit distressed and the edge is non existent. It also has rust seemingly seeping abit out from the top of the scales (which worries me about whats under um)

Im Thinking about attempting to remove the handles and re rivet them back in. The rust I may Try buffing off with a dremel tool. Anyone know the best way to restore a slightly distressed knife? its still visibly structurally sound.

Those knives are somewhat rare. If you try to clean it as you describe, you will ruin any collector value.

Dremels and knives do not mix!

I would contact Buck and see if they will polish it for you for a small fee.

http://www.buckknives.com/index.cfm?event=company.contact

In good shape, a Buck 107 with the original sheath (also in good shape) can be worth about a hundred bucks.

While collector value is kinda neat My intentions are to use it. I know Not much about good skinner designs but this knife seems like it may be a decent skinning knife. It looks like he used it for fishing which may also be another good use.

It depends on the handle and how it was riveted/pinned, but I wouldn't count on being able to use the same handles again after you take them off. The pins are peened to hold the scales, which would make it hard to get them out. The pin is basically an hourglass shape. The hard part/problem is that no matter which way you push the pin, you're going to push a wide part of the pin (the end) through a part of the scale that has a narrower hole. Honestly, if you want to save the scales that are on it, I wouldn't try and remove them. In all likelihood you'll crack one of them trying to get them off. If it were me, I'd oil the wood if were dry, and leave it alone otherwise. Sharpen the blade, simply remove the surface rust and keep the blade oiled as it is. You aren't going to make it like new, and honestly what's the point? (I know, my opinion). If you want a new knife, get one. If you want to use an old knife, then sharpen it and use it.

Do not want it like new. Want all rust off it and hopefully not rusted under the scales. Im not one who enjoys using knifes with rust old or new.

You'll have to drill the rivets out to get the scales off, and as others have said you may not be able to salvage them. Were it mine I'd probably have it re-handled. If you're not pretty handy (and well stocked with tools) it would be best to let a pro handle it.