Grandfathers knife renewal. Advice needed.

Hi all.
I received this knife from my Grandfather who passed away last year.
I would like to clean and refurbish it.

I have not done anything like this before and only know what I have read on this and an Australian forum.

I would like advice/ideas on the blade and the handle.

The blade has character and would like to keep it. So not going to polish it to a mirror.
Other than that I am open to ideas.

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Photos here.

I'm just a newbie but I'd suggest you'd want to even up the heel to get rid of the concavity and perhaps regrind the tip profile (easiest to drop the tip a little by grinding from the spine-side). Looks like a few nicks in the spine (esp near the handle) which you could probably lightly sand out with emery cloth but be careful not to put a dip in the spine by over-sanding.

Obviously a re-handle is in order too - probably best/easiest to stick with the same shape by following the tang unless it's a hidden or half tang in which case it can be a little bit trickier if you haven't done it before. If you really wanted to keep the original handle, I'd remove the scales as carefully as possible (drill out the pins and replace them), fill the cracks and refinish them.

As for the finish on the blade, I'm not sure you need to do much; it's hard to tell from the photos whether there's any pitting/rust - if not, I'd probably just leave it. If you did clean it up though, the patina will return through use. Once all that's done, put on a nice edge

I am going to put a new handle on. So I drill out the pins? OK good.
Chips in the spine, sand but keep level.
The tip. Grind down from the spine to the tip rather sharpen up to the tip.
Level the heel.

All good ideas thanks.

Grinding the tip. Free hand on a rotary bench grinder?
Any traps or things to know first.

daskooka said:

Grinding the tip. Free hand on a rotary bench grinder?
Any traps or things to know first.

Click to expand...

Don't rush it. Take it slowly and don't forget to wear eyes protection.
It shouldn't be a hard and time consuming task. Recently I reprofiled two knives using disk sander and it works well.

I'd probably first remove the handle. So you could clean up tang right after you finish reprofiling of nose and heel parts. And I find it quicker to use chisel to destroy old handle, then drilling out rivets/pins (I'm guessing here that you are going to make a new handle).

icanhaschzbrgr said:

Don't rush it. Take it slowly and don't forget to wear eyes protection.
It shouldn't be a hard and time consuming task. Recently I reprofiled two knives using disk sander and it works well.

I'd probably first remove the handle. So you could clean up tang right after you finish reprofiling of nose and heel parts. And I find it quicker to use chisel to destroy old handle, then drilling out rivets/pins (I'm guessing here that you are going to make a new handle).

Click to expand...

Also, make sure that when you're grinding - especially the tip - do small passes and dip the blade in water in between passes to keep the blade cool. You don't want to change the tempering by getting it too hot. There's only a small amount of metal at the tip so it heats up quick! If you have a belt grinder, I'd recommend that instead - just rock the spine from the flat to the tip on the flat platen of the grinder so you don't get any hollows.

As Anton said, if you're not keeping the original handle, whack that off quick smart with a chisel and remove the pins. Working on the blade without the handle is much easier. You'll need to clean up the tang anyway before installing the new handle so best to do all the grinding at the same time. Let us know how it goes.

this thread may give some information/inspiration: http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/showthread.php/12042-Recent-remodel-project

Fix the bevel and profile it straighter, leave the handle alone...changing the handle will loose a part of grandad.