I have not visited this thread for a while, great mods are still done!
Today, or actually yesterday and a week ago, I modded a knife (does that count?).
I was eyeing a nice classic looking TwoSun slipjoint knife but from modern materials (M390 steel blade, titanium liners), but I was not quite attracted to the rounded bone scales, they make the knife too thick and I’m not a fan of bone in the first place. But the rest looked very nice so I bought it in the hope that I could make new scales for it.
Here is how it was:
I really like the size, the sturdy thick build of the blade and liners, and the stiff action opening/closing the knife: this knife will, despite no lock, not easily close on you.
I hope that H.YD, who I presume is the designer, does not mind what I did to his/her knife.
Luckily the knife came apart very straightforward and no glue was used to fix the scales. In fact that may have become a problem over time with breaking off the scales, the scales are only held in place by a thin rim onto which the two screws are clamped, so sideways force on the blade works via the screw directly on that tiny bone rim.
Thanks to the titanium liners, the knife is fairly low-weight, so I thought that adding bronze scales would not make it overly heavy. I like bronze for the nice colour and patina over time, the colour is better than brass and it is much harder than copper. I bought a strip of 1.5mm thick bronze and used the old scales as a template.
I like the knife now much better than with the bone scales but I do miss some texture on the scales (and patina).
As you can see, one of the scales was shaped better than the other, I’m not perfect.
To add texture to the scales, I tried my hand on etching with FeCl3, never did that before so I made a few small test-pieces before starting with the scales. As I found somewhere, I used a Sharpie to create resist for the etching liquid. I thought that a creative edge on the scales would be nice. I also blackened the inside of the holes.
After polishing with Brasso:
Ok, the technique worked perfectly well, I’m happy with that. But the result is just awful, the scales look like imitation leather now. I just turned a 75 dollar M390 blade with titanium liners into a 3 dollar knife from a greek souvenir shop
But the plain texture caused by the etching on the flat bits looks interesting though. So I removed the scales again and sanded the surface completely flat again. The scales are getting thinner now, I went from 1.5mm to 1.3mm. I blackened the inside of the holes again and etched the now plain surface again. The result was now much better, this is how is going to stay. The now thinner scales (about 1.15mm after the second etching step) still look good and make the knife 10 grams lighter than before etching (87 grams now).
It was fun to mod a knife for a change, I never made custom scales before and I like how it turned out. I will post another picture after some patina has developed.