Opinions please. What could make this huge scratch?
- This topic has 15 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 04/25/2018 at 10:32 am by
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What a bummer! That doesn’t really look similar to the scratches that we’ve seen the diamonds leave in a blade surface. I don’t know what would have caused a mark like that. As far as I am aware, Spyderco does not sell new blades. Benchmade and ZT both offer that service. I guess this one will be a user from here on out.
You can cover the blade with tape prior to sharpening, but there are risks associated with that as well. Josh at Razor Edge knives has reported that he can sometimes see a discoloration of the blade right at the line of where the tape was. Here’s the thread.
Scratches like that are always caused by careless stoning. The user hits the side of the knife with a corner of the stone on the return stroke and the resultant scratch is so obvious that it begs for some repair work. In my personal experience, it was caused by the corner of a glass platen hitting the sides of the blade on a return stroke, which is why I switched to brass for my films. Organic’s advice about taping the areas of the knife not to be sharpened is appropriate. At least one user (maybe Josh at REK?) reported that he was even taping up exposed areas on the handles. Customers don’t like to get their knives back with such obvious damage, and the cost of making things right is high.
Repairing such scratches can be done by re-sanding the surface of the blade. By hand, this can be tedious and forces you to continue to a high polish, because hand sanding is so imperfect and obvious. Spyderco might give a quote on a factory sand job, but their blades are sanded originally by machine. I don’t know how or if they’d do a repair like that.
I too experienced the issue TCMeyer wrote of. I wasn’t able to say for sure whether the scratches were from the glass platens, or from the straight-cut very stiff edges of the lapping film strips.
To overcome these stray scratches, I take a new foam emery board, (used to file finger nails), against the four thin edges of the glass blank platens to file them smooth and essentially bevel the edges that makes closest contact to the knife. These glass edges can vary greatly from one platen blank to the next. Some are very sharp and jagged and will cut you while others were very smooth. The beveling made all the difference.
I also place the film on the glass platen in a position to have as even an overhang, off the glass as possible in all four direction, Then I try to fold the little tiny flap that overhangs the glass, down out of the plane of contact, or up, towards the center plastic handle so it doesn’t contact the steel, (the same thing said from two different perspectives). Since putting this extra care for the glass platens into practice I haven’t seem any aberrant scratches caused by the edge of the glass platens, or the sometimes stiff sharp edges of the lapping film.
Marc
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tcmeyer made the bass platens himself and then attached them to the WE handles. One thing to note: if you go with custom brass platens for your lapping films you will probably need to flatten them prior to use to true the surface surface. Another option is to use the aluminium ones that WE sells. These might also benefit from leveling before use.
I chose brass because I had some 1/8″ X 3/4″ stock on hand which was the right thickness and width and it’s readily available. WE sells a pair of handles with aluminum platens on it, and they work just as well. In either case, you’ll want to lap them on a plate with sandpaper. I started at 320 and went up to 2000 to get a super flat, shiny surface.
You can polish the edges of the glass platens as Marc says and solve the problem that way, too. Being as hard as glass is, you’d probably want to use DLF to finish them. I’d focus on the ends and corners. It’s not likely that the edges along the sides will contact the knife except on the bevel.
I absolutely do not believe that the edges of the lapping film could cause such scratches. The grits we use are so small they are more likely to polish the sides of a blade than produce individual scratches.
Ya, I’m going to first try the smoothing out around the edges and corners of the glass platens. I turn my stones a few times each session, so I’ll hit all the edges. First I’ll try the emery board route as Marc suggests. I have other files and abrasive tools to also try if the boards wear too quickly.
The blue tape definitely catches metal and diamond dust. I watched that link. Ill go back to a small piece of the rubber drawer liner I first started using.
Lighter wiping up to prevent dragging debris horizontally makes sense. When I showed the guy who made the scratches this thread he immediately said he now thinks he did it with the 1500/6 mu handle. I can see that as by the time I reach the 1500 grit Im moving a lot faster on my strokes as there is so much less drag. The scratches were not made with the glass platens with the 3mu and 1 mu DLF because those handles just came in today.
I doubt that any DLF could make a scratch that wide or deep. He was buffing it out last night with some compound and he actually got it to the point where you cant feel the scratch any more. But now is blade is dull in spots. Oh well, now he has a mirror edge on a $160 para 2 beater :o)
Could have been worse. It might have been one of “my” folders haha. This is why I went through 20 kitchen knives first and waited two months before I attacked a pricey folder. Check out this Chris Reeves Sebenza 21 with the Damascus rain drop blade I have coming. I certainly don’t want to scratch this one for sure. Won’t this look nice with a new mirror edge? If I ever go to re-sell it (which I doubt). The factory puts their factory edge back on for no charge if the buyer does not want a mirror edge.
And thats not my hairy mitt. Its the sellers.
Check out this little guy that came yesterday. Its called a Mnandi by Chris Reeve Knives. But I think I’ll need to order those WE baby sized stones!
And yes, I know what you are thinking, its time to clean my keyboard as I see from the pics (its actually the clear keyboard protector thats dirty).
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Baby sized stones for a small folder like the Mnandi. Im only kidding.
I also have the Tormek adapter so if i go for a mirror edge i might try that clamp first.
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Man, you’ve got some super cool knives! I really like that Damascus one. I doubt I’d ever buy one like that myself because I’d be too worried about marring it during use and I’m not going to buy a knife I don’t intend to use.
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