How Can Custom Knife Mods Bring Total Satisfaction?

We all have been there in some way or the other whether it be an old piece of furniture, a remodel of your kitchen or bath, a work table where you spend a lot of time, or a tool you would love to modify to suit your needs more efficiently and have the right eye appeal that will continue to feed the flame of your desires.

In a nutshell all modifications (Mods) starts with a need or the desires for ones own taste. So without further ado shall we do a quick review of a small edc (everyday carry) fixie that I recently had the pleasure of working on with a customer.

Greg came to me back in the winter and asked if I would like to work with him to create a mod on a knife he had to suit his everyday needs at work, me being me I jumped at the chance to work with Greg. One of the things I love to bring to the table with my customers is the 'Working Together' part so it capitalizes on the customers wants. In my humble opinion this is the only way for complete 100% satisfaction in all involved parties.

We worked out an outline together of what Greg needed me to follow and as we discussed the ideas I quickly became more pumped at what I was starting to visualize what Greg wanted.

When Greg sent over a couple of photos and I saw it was a Tanto Karambit of sorts I was hooked!

Under 6" and sporting a heavy thickness with unique jimping along back of blade, this was a dream come true.

So we came up with a plan to evolve knife into a 'Distressed Shipwreck' piece.

this would require defining bevels and lines while keeping as much original features as possible so not to take away from the knife in anyway.

We settled on clarifying features of steel and adding fresh acid etch, patinaed copper liners with Bog Oak scales.

I started with truing up the hole to stop the effects it had on the eyes when looking through it...call it my 'OCD' if you wish 😜

Now that we have hole trued up it was time for cleaning up bevel lines.

Next step was taking it to the blaster for a removal of the existing acid etch and cleaning up surface.

I've had super good results when I use glass micro beads to clean off surfaces of steel materials so my endeavors would not eat up the steel surface during the removal process. It worked great on this piece.

Now that I have the final dimensions of where the scales need to be at I was able to cut out the copper pieces from a sheet of copper stock and drop them into a plastic tub of patina solution. To get the desired 'shipwreck' look I left the copper liners in the solution for 14 days for heavy patina and hard attachment to copper.

The patina took well and I was able to get the desired effects wanted with crusty blue-green tones in patina.

Looking through my wood stock I was able to locate a good piece of Bog Oak that had a deep black-brown look which give it the appearance of being water-logged, this would do perfectly for what we needed to go with the patinaed copper and distressed acid wash.

Now that the scales were rough cut to shape I was ready for the acid-wash of knifes steel. I have my own blend of acids to get the desired effects I want and that are durable over time. The tones for this build needed to be dark but with a greyish effect throughout to give the desired weather look.

Oh just a glimpse of what is involved during the scale work...lets just say my fingers did not enjoy the sanding of these small scales and they got very tender 😂

Now we were kicking and ready for the builds block-up and finishing...rough sanded surfaces of the copper liners to 120 grit for good bonding, the edges were left in their heavy patinaed state so they would give the desired look when finished.

Now that it is all blocked-up in vise clamps, its hurry up and wait...but the completion is everything we wanted.

Now that this knife has been with its owner for a few months it is awesome to get feedback with photos of knife being used on a daily basis and meeting the requirements for its use.

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Thank you for your time and may the force of steel be with you always!

Jeffrey Hunter