Restoring this Knife ? Help

[Paul Bacino]

So,  this can from my family store.  Italian butcher and specialty

 

The steel im not sure.  Has some deep pitting,   I have a rough finish starting.  just need a idea on grits/stones and polishing

 

I have 1000/ 4000 grit shapening stones/  I have a lathe at office with buffing type wheels.  that also has a sanding mandrel  

 

 

[rotuts]

nice knife !

 

Id only remove any rust , via some sort of rust removal solution.

 

look into that carefully

 

the patina of age makes this knife remarkable.

 

and Id clean up the wooden handle , but not sand it

 

then maybe some oil on the handle to cure.

 

I can't imagine the steel is of the highest grade , i.e. Japanese steel

 

its a tool meant to work with

 

1000 grit will make it razor sharp , and really no need to go that high.

 

make sure you ' temper ' or bevel off the final edge w a ceramic round possibly stone

 

one light pass.

 

go to EdgePro and see that final step there

 

https://www.edgeproinc.com/videos-32.html

 

great find !

[Okanagancook]

Looks like the knives they use to kill lambs for halal meat.  How are going to use it?

Edited February 9, 2019 by Okanagancook (log)

[Kerry Beal]

5 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Looks like the knives they use to kill lambs for halal meat.  How are going to use it?

 

I have a scimitar knife like that inherited from my butcher friend Huey when he died. I use it for large cuts of meat when breaking them down. And for cutting caramels sometimes.

 

[Okanagancook]

Ok.  Nice to have but takes up a lot of room in the knife drawer.  I can see it would be perfect for cutting prime rib roasts into bistecka sized steaks.

[boilsover]

On 2/9/2019 at 5:02 AM, Paul Bacino said:

So,  this can from my family store.  Italian butcher and specialty

 

The steel im not sure.  Has some deep pitting,   I have a rough finish starting.  just need a idea on grits/stones and polishing

 

I have 1000/ 4000 grit shapening stones/  I have a lathe at office with buffing type wheels.  that also has a sanding mandrel  

 

 

I did some time making knives, and grew up working in my dad's processing plant.

 

I think this blade is worth restoring, but I humbly suggest you hire it out.  Someone with the right belt machine and polishing setup would make short work of it.

 

If you value your fingers and toes, do not put this anywhere close to a rotary buffer.  You will get tired, the phone will ring, the edge will catch, and your finger will be on the floor before you feel it.

 

Forget stones.  If, however, you don't mind taking a lot of time, you can do the whole job, semi-safely, by hand.  With a wooden pushstick and an assortment of emery cloth grits, you can put a mirror finish on the metal.  It is laborious, but I've done it.  You start off very coarse, and you run in one direction until you've removed all pits and scratches.  Then you go just a tiny bit finer, and run at a 90° angle until all the first patten is removed.  And so on until you're down to around 2000 grit automotive paper.  If you want, I can post a photo of what the pushsticks look like, and offer more tips.  You will earn it if you go this route.

 

I think the whole process is written out in a book entitled "The $50 Knife Shop", by a guy named Wayne Goddard, IIRC.

[paulraphael]

If you want it to look like new (which I wouldn't ... I like the age showing) I'd check with Dave Martell at Japanese Knife Sharpening and see if he'd like to take it on. 

 

If you want to keep the battle scars but make it useful, it probably won't be too much work. I'm guessing it's carbon steel, and not terribly hard, so it should be pretty easy to sharpen and work on. If you already have a full set of water stones you're pretty much ready to go. The first step would be removing the active rust (anything red or brown) with Barkeeper's Friend and a scouring pad. This will take off all the patina, too, but it will come back. And don't forget to take care of the wood with some conditioner, like the beeswax / mineral oil blends used for cutting boards. 

 

After that it's just going to be about repairing edge damage with your coarsest stone, putting on a new edge with a medium stone, and then polishing with finer stones, if you like. None of us can tell you how fine a grit to sharpen to. That's going to depend on what you like, and on what the steel will take. If it's a soft or coarse-grained steel, going much beyond 2000 grit will be pointless. Depending on how you use the knife, and how you like to cut, you may not want to go past a toothy 1000 grit. 

 

FWIW I go to 1000 with my German chef's knife and anything I use for butchering, boning, or ripping open packages. My gyuto and slicing knife I take to 6000–10000. This gives a polished edge similar to a straight razor, but doesn't really make sense for a butchering knife like this.

 

I believe one traditional use of scimitars is butchering meat that's hanging from the ceiling. The curved blade makes it useful when cutting overhead. Another use is slaying your enemies when they're on foot and you're on a horse. 

Edited February 10, 2019 by paulraphael (log)

[chefmd]

Very timely thread.  I just got this knife as a gift from my friend who owns an antique shop.  The blade seems to be made of soft carbon steel.

[boilsover]

2 hours ago, chefmd said:

Very timely thread.  I just got this knife as a gift from my friend who owns an antique shop.  The blade seems to be made of soft carbon steel.

If you would, please post a shot looking down at the spine.  If it's thin to very thin, these clean up nice and make great "lasers" for slicing vegetables,

[chefmd]

45 minutes ago, boilsover said:

If you would, please post a shot looking down at the spine.  If it's thin to very thin, these clean up nice and make great "lasers" for slicing vegetables,

Here it is next to a penny.

 

[boilsover]

Thanks.  Still a nice knife, just thicker than I thought.  Does the tang taper back toward the butt end?

[chefmd]

11 minutes ago, boilsover said:

Thanks.  Still a nice knife, just thicker than I thought.  Does the tang taper back toward the butt end?

It’s a full tang and the thickness seems to be the same throughout.  

[boilsover]

2 minutes ago, chefmd said:

It’s a full tang and the thickness seems to be the same throughout.  

 

Yes, it looked full.  A "rat-tail" tapered tang is a pretty good indicator of a well-made knife.

[Paul Bacino]

Thanks @boilsover

 

Think I will work with hand papers..  I started with 200 grit.  Would u suggest coarser to start.  Is very laborious with the 200?

 

Cheers

[boilsover]

Here's a photo of the push stick.  You only use the edge at the very corner closest to the "10" on the tape measure.

 

 

[boilsover]

3 hours ago, Paul Bacino said:

Thanks @boilsover

 

Think I will work with hand papers..  I started with 200 grit.  Would u suggest coarser to start.  Is very laborious with the 200?

 

Cheers

 

Hmmm, before I posted the photo, I tried posting a few tips from my tablet, and they're not showing up here.  So here're shorter versions:

 

1.  Spend extra time at 180 or 200 to get all the pits out.  When you go to the next grit and turn 90 degrees, you will immediately see if you didn't get them all.  In which case drop back to 180 or 200 at the original direction.  Same story as you progress finer--if the current grit/direction isn't removing all the marks from the previous, you must go back.

 

2.  If you use a block or wrap the paper on a file, you're going to be buying a lot of sandpaper.  Doing it this way quickly clogs the grit before it can do much work.  That's what the stick is for--you keep putting fresh abrasive in between the corner edge of the stick and the steel, and work only a few strokes, then shift the paper to a fresh area.  I've found that 1"-wide "shop rolls" of emery cloth work really well, too.

 

3.  The stick is about 1/4" thick.  You want to use that short edge as your bearing surface.  Such a tiny area under hand pressure and fresh grit is what does the work.

Edited February 11, 2019 by boilsover (log)

[Porthos]

I would personally not recommend the sanding mandrel. You can build up a lot of heat quickly and affect the temper, assuming the blade was given a decent temper when originally made.

 

I'm a die-hard fan of the EdgePro sharpening system and that's the only thing I would use to put a new edge on it.  (p.s. I just ordered the small blade adapter for my EdgePro last night)

 

Going to  thrift stores and finding decent knives that need a new edge is a bit of a hobby for me.

[Martin Fisher]

It's impossible to judge the condition of the knife via a photo.

But based on what I see, I'd just sharpen the dang thing—I love rustic!!!

If you want a "shiny" "cimeter" or "scimitar", save yourself a lot of personal effort or labor expense and just buy one.

Edited February 12, 2019 by DiggingDogFarm (log)

[Martin Fisher]

If there are raised spots of rust, they can be removed with steel wool or fine sandpaper.

After removing the rust you can do a forced patina on those stops with mustard.

I've sealed many handles with just drug store mineral oil.

 

[Martin Fisher]

FWIW,

A good patina is desirable because it offers some protection against rust.

[Martin Fisher]

A Chinese chef knife with forced patina and handle sealed with mineral oil.