Minor Mods = Major Difference

[hovan2yourknives]

I bought my GB2 last summer and loved everything about it for the first week or so. The grinds and the blade shape are AWESOME! Some people don't care for the proud liners but, personally, I think they give the knife an sleek profile and comfortable feel that I just love. However, after the first 2 days of hard use, doing some renovations to my house, my thumb was getting really jacked up from disengaging the lockbar. I think it was because my hands were moist from humidity and sweat which caused the skin on my thumb to become pretty ugly and raw. I put the knife away that day and grabbed a tried and true PM2 and kind of forgot about the knife for a few months.

I picked it up a few times in the past year to carry for a day or two and it's be great for a little while but always ended up eventually bothering my thumb. I'd been thinking about grinding a cutout for access to the lockbar...but I kept putting it off, fearing that I'd screw it up. I finally gave it a shot, and man...am I glad I did. I love this knife again!! I also extended the sharpening choil a little bit to make sharpening a bit easier and, let's be honest...prettier. Next is to give her a good sharpening...which I'm REALLY looking forward to! Who needs to go to the gym or meditate when you have a garage and knives to sharpen? :D

What minor mods have you guys done that completely transformed the form and/or function of your knife?

[abbazaba]

Turned out great! I often sand the "crisp" edges with some 1500b sandpaper... Big difference in hand feel. Just did it to my Caly3 HAP40.

[blueblur]

I did the same thing as the OP to my GB1 but removed more material. I'm generally not a liner lock fan but creating some access to the lock really made a big difference to me with the GB. I like the amount of access on the military.

On most of my G10 blades I'll sand the edges of the handle to smooth them out a bit.

On my cf Manix I was having a little trouble getting it out of my pocket since the cf is so smooth so I added 3 clip screws to the left side of the handle to give a little more traction for my thumb when removing from my pocket. It made a bigger difference than I was expecting and looks a little better too since there aren't any empty holes.

The Para 3 I just received has a very stiff lock release and I'm debating pulling of the scale to try and reduce some of the tension on the lock bar. This is my first Para 3 so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be this stiff or if it's due to less leverage from the shorter handle. It's a lot stiffer than any of my PM2's

[hovan2yourknives]

The Para 3 I just received has a very stiff lock release and I'm debating pulling of the scale to try and reduce some of the tension on the lock bar. This is my first Para 3 so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be this stiff or if it's due to less leverage from the shorter handle. It's a lot stiffer than any of my PM2's

I'm still waiting on my first Para 3 so I'm not familiar with it yet but when I got my Sage 5 I felt the same way about the lockbar. I didn't mess with it at all figuring it was a result of the dimensions (less leverage). It either broke in or I got used to it because I don't even think about it now...and it's one of my "go-to" knives (after some minor mods of course )

-Hovan

[hovan2yourknives]

Turned out great! I often sand the "crisp" edges with some 1500b sandpaper... Big difference in hand feel. Just did it to my Caly3 HAP40.

Yeah man, I do the same...I roll up the sandpaper into a little stiff tube and do it that way. Works great!

-Hovan

[ZrowsN1s]

looks good!

[40mm]

Minor mod....ground a choil into my Salt 1. Only took 5 min or so. Grip wise it's a major difference for me because my index finger was dying to land there anyway. I love the mod and the knife. I stripped the Titanium clip and barrel bolts also. I like the contrast of the matte gray better than black on black.
image by Six Pound Cat, on Flickrimage by Six Pound Cat, on Flickr

[vivi]

This handle mod for a Tasman Salt:



The Salt 1 / Tasman Salt handle didn't offer enough room for my index and middle finger, and gave me a bit of extra space for my more narrow ring finger. This solved that, and gives me a comfortable 4 finger grip.

[Nate]

I sanded down all the edges on the scales of one of my PM2's. Huge impact on how good it feels in hand for relatively little effort.

[NoFair]

I sanded down all the edges on the scales of one of my PM2's. Huge impact on how good it feels in hand for relatively little effort.

I do the same on all my new G10 knives. Doesn't take much..

[crazywednesday]

Minor mod....ground a choil into my Salt 1. Only took 5 min or so. Grip wise it's a major difference for me because my index finger was dying to land there anyway. I love the mod and the knife. I stripped the Titanium clip and barrel bolts also. I like the contrast of the matte gray better than black on black.
image by Six Pound Cat, on Flickrimage by Six Pound Cat, on Flickr

Thanks 44m! Those pics just gave me the push over the edge. Check it out my Tasman. It took me longer to figure out how to post pics than make the choil. I think it needs a few final touches, but it feels great already.

Tasman




Justin

[40mm]

Nice work! Looks great and now you've made it your own :)

Minor mod....ground a choil into my Salt 1. Only took 5 min or so. Grip wise it's a major difference for me because my index finger was dying to land there anyway. I love the mod and the knife. I stripped the Titanium clip and barrel bolts also. I like the contrast of the matte gray better than black on black.
image by Six Pound Cat, on Flickrimage by Six Pound Cat, on Flickr

Thanks 44m! Those pics just gave me the push over the edge. Check it out my Tasman. It took me longer to figure out how to post pics than make the choil. I think it needs a few final touches, but it feels great already.

Tasman




Justin

[Evil D]

Can you post a pic of this here?

Justin

Here ya go. I have a huge thread about this but of course Photophuckit destroyed it so here's a few pics. Basically I just reshaped the handle grip area and smoothed over the point at the top of the thumb ramp. I've done it twice now with both G10 and CF handle versions. I'm not sure I'd call this a subtle change, it was a heck of a lot of work, but for me and my hand size it was totally worth it.

This shows the changes that were made from the inside, you can see compared to where the liner nests into the scale how much was removed.



First you need to clamp the scales together and shape them at the same time so they're symmetrical..


Then you smooth and contour everything..


This shows how much of the tang had to be ground off to match the new scale shape..


Here's the finished result...









And here's a side by side comparison..

[crazywednesday]

I bought an Emerson serrated delica on a whim from BF. It was well used and missing a bit of the tip, but I wanted to carry a non hawkbill serrated to see if I liked it. After a two weeks I realized 2 things; 1) I prefer serrations on Hawkbill blades. 2) Im loving this Emerson thing. I already posted pics of the finger choil on my Tasman. Here are new pics of the Tasman. She is a one of a kind.

[toomzz]

Hi Hovan,

I did the same on both of my GB-models.. I only removed a little material of the liner opposite of lockbar. It is barely visible on both. Initially, in 2010 I removed a big heap on my first GB, way to much. I learned and did the subtle way on my GB2. This year I bought another GB (1) on which I did the same subtle removal job. Works perfectly fine, no more sore thumbs.

Cheers,
Tom

[crazywednesday]

Hi Hovan,

I did the same on both of my GB-models.. I only removed a little material of the liner opposite of lockbar. It is barely visible on both. Initially, in 2010 I removed a big heap on my first GB, way to much. I learned and did the subtle way on my GB2. This year I bought another GB (1) on which I did the same subtle removal job. Works perfectly fine, no more sore thumbs.

Cheers,
Tom

Pics please.

[ZrowsN1s]

I bought an Emerson serrated delica on a whim from BF. It was well used and missing a bit of the tip, but I wanted to carry a non hawkbill serrated to see if I liked it. After a two weeks I realized 2 things; 1) I prefer serrations on Hawkbill blades. 2) Im loving this Emerson thing. I already posted pics of the finger choil on my Tasman. Here are new pics of the Tasman. She is a one of a kind.

Nice Mod!