Restoration Project - Help Please!

[Canazes9]

First off, this is non Spyderco related, my apologies if this is not appropriate for this board, mods feel free to delete...

My wife's grandfather was a paratrooper (82nd Airborne) in WW2 and also served during Korea. He is long since passed. His only child is my wife's mother. My father-in-law recently dug up a bayonet knife from some of "Froggy's" stuff. This thing is in as bad a shape as possible and has zero value except to my wife and mother in law.

Froggy, though extremely proud of his service, was without sentiment. This thing looks like it's been used to open paint cans and God knows what else. The tip is bent, the leather handle is in terrible shape, the entire thing is splattered with paint, the carbon steel is rusted in spots and it appears as if it has been repeatedly sharpened with a grinder - In short, this thing is a train wreck.

My father-in-law knows I'm a "knife guy" and asked me if I can do anything to restore it. He made it clear, his expectations are low and understands that it's damaged. This is a daunting task! The took biggest obstacles I see are the bent tip and the leather handle.

Is it possible to crudely straighten the tip? Clueless on what to do here!

Is it possible to replace the leather on the handle? I could probably source and cut the leather if I knew how to dissassemble - any ideas?

If I could take care of these two items the rest of the project is doable.

Any suggestions? Sources of information?











Any help appreciated!


David

[TriggerThumb]

Personally I would use mineral spirits to get all the paint off, soak everything in salt and vinear then scrub with increasingly finer steel wools to remove corrosion then neutralize with baking soda. Then dry it as well as possible, maybe with a hair dryer. Condition the leather, maybe a light coat of wax. Grind the tip to a reasonable shape, then roughly shape the edge before doing a legit sharpen with some stones or whatever. But idk anything about true restoration, this is just what I do with my implements that sit out in the weather for too long.

[BrianMcCord]

Since that is the condition that he left it in, I would leave it as is. I have a KaBar from my grandfather that was in rough shape. All I did was coated it in oil to prevent any further corrosion. This is my opinion...and sweet blade BTW.

[gmhauy]

There is a Maintenance, Tinkering & Embellishment forum on Blade Forums where you should be able to get some additional good advice.

Gerard

[bearfacedkiller]

The tip could likely be straightened but there is always the risk of it breaking while bending. If I were to do it I would put the tip in a vise between two pieces of wood and pry a little until straight. It is up to you if you want to chance it. Being a carbon steel and likly not being too hard it seems doable.

The pommel could be peened, pinned, threaded or spot welded on. I'm not sure. Getting that off should be doable and replacing the leather isn't hard. People do it to kabars all the time. You should be able to do a search and find a write up on that. You can buy the leather disks already cut from Kabar or from a knifemaking supply seller.

Once apart you could sand blast the entire thing.

I have an heirloom knife and will not restore it because of the memories it has but it isn't in as rough of shape as yours. If it was I would probably clean it up.

Gerard's advice is good. This is the place to ask:

https://www.bladeforums.com/forums/main ... hment.794/

[Holzfaeller]

Good luck with your project. Post photos when you're done.

[RLDubbya]

I've built a couple knives like that from old files.

I would start at the pommel / butt, and I would use an air compressor with a cut-off tool, and cut the butt clean off. The leather handle looks to be stacked leather washers; a typical construction technique is to stack the leather washers with glue onto the tang, and then tighten a pommel onto the end to compress all of them. You let let the glue dry, and then shape the handle as though you were working one big piece of solid leather.

So: I'd cut off the leather as well. Examine the tang and the hand/finger guard for rust, clean it up as you can. As long as the rust is not too much nor too deep, I'd keep going...depending on what I'd found, I would source leather washers, and a butt-piece, and redo the handle that way. I might instead find a piece of pipe, maybe ti, and spot weld it to the tang / finger guard.

As far as the pointed end: simplest thing to do, IMO, is to simply grind the bend out. If you straighten the tip, it's going to be structurally weakened quite a bit, I think. So, take a Sharpie, and mark the blade where you want the new tip to be, and grind to that line. I'd use a belt grinder, as that gives me more control and a finer tool.

Good luck!

[Surfingringo]

I'll offer my 2 cents. First of all, I agree with Darby. That is probably a cheap carbon steel blade and probably not overly hard. I strongly suspect you will be able to carefully bend the tip back without breaking it but proceed with caution obviously. Regarding the handle, I would be reticent to replace the original leather. I would do my best to remove the stains from the leather and recondition it with oil or wax. I would use something like flitz and a mild abrasive to remove some of the rust and staining from the blade but if it were me I would not want to polish it. That's an antique and it is natural to look worn.

[Canazes9]

I greatly appreciate everyone's input!

I have managed to successfully remove most of the paint from the metal work, the leather is proving more difficult... I've also removed a bit of the discoloration from the blade. About 50% of the blade was heavily coated in wax. Removed the wax then began working the blade a little w/ flitz.

I've decided I'm going to make an attempt to "restore" the leather handle. I use quotation marks as I know it will never be functional for real use, but I don't anticipate this old blade being used for anything more than decoration at this point. Any other suggestions, please offer them up!

David

[Donut]

If you want to cheat, just buy one of these and tell him "look at what I did!" :)

https://www.knifecenter.com/item/ON8155 ... her-sheath

If you look at the picture, the butt end has a set screw. Maybe look at that.
Another option is for the end piece to screw onto a threaded tang.

That type of leather handle, I _think_ they are many layers of leather with a bunch of glue, skewered and the handle end of the blade looks pretty thin.

Check out this youtube video with some fixed blade xrays. https://youtu.be/OC04GFsaPpE&NR=1

The first image on this link looks like the type of knife you have, before it got in bad shape.

http://www.ebay.com/cln/byron10_7/ww2-f ... 0623961016

First Image: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HYkAAOxy ... -l1600.jpg

Here is another one: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/NjkAAOSw ... -l1600.jpg

[Surfingringo]

You can use a fingernail file to lightly "sand" the paint off of the leather.

[anagarika]

There is a Maintenance, Tinkering & Embellishment forum on Blade Forums where you should be able to get some additional good advice.

Gerard

This ^. Bill De Shiv does restoration work, and Josh (REK) does reblade, regrind, etc. and they are generous with advices for those wanting to do the work.

Most importantly is what is the expectation, and how much of the part must remain original? Remake of the handle with new leather stack is possible but it will not be the same knife.

[Bloke]

You're obviously disassembling the knife so I'd be inclined to hit the blade with a wire wheel or brush then apply some Rust Converter let it do it's thing as directed and hit it with a wire wheel again.

That will clean the steel as clean as it's likely to get and you can sand polish it from there.

Just another 2c worth. :)

[Xplorer]

...Any suggestions? Sources of information?..

Hi Canazes9,

What a cool piece of family history! That looks like is could be a first-run M4 Bayonet. If that is an original leather handle it would indicate that this is a first-run model and potentially produced between 1944 and 1945. Because the leather didn't hold up well in the Pacific theater many were modified to have hard rubber, wood or aluminum handles. Then to address the issue for the second run (around 1954), they went to 2-piece molded rubber (or plastic) scales for handles. If it were mine I would leave it as is and enjoy the history that made it the way it is.

I can probably identify it a little more specifically if I can see what is stamped on the back of the pommel.?

The metal aspect of knife can be restored to whatever degree you desire. The tip can be straightened and the rest of the metal parts can be restored as well. It is definitely a carbon steel. If you want to try bending the tip it is best done with controlled heat and controlled pressure, as you'll be far less likely to break it. In fact, if you're going to try to bend it let me know and I'll explain how to set up a bending jig and how to heat it. I suggest you don't just heat it with a torch and try to bend it with pliers. That knife was probably tempered between 600F and 800F so you should be able to warm it to at least 400F-500F without changing the temper. Most likely the temper doesn't even matter because you are probably not going to use this knife for cutting anything anyway. Plus, the Rockwell hardness of that knife is likely in the mid to high 40's to begin with.

If you have trouble with any aspect of your project, shoot me a DM and I'll be glad to help you through it.

Best regards,

Chad

[Surfingringo]

I agree with Chad's sentiments on enjoying it in its aged condition. Were it me, I would mainly want to clean it (which to me means removing the paint from the leather and the actual rust from the blade), sharpen it and straighten the tip. My father has some old S&W 32-20 & .38 revolvers that belonged to his grandfather. He had one of them "restored" which meant a complete refurbishing and rebluing and has always kind of regretted losing the history that was marked on that gun.

[Canazes9]

I’m kind of leaning towards just cleaning it up, straightening the tip, sharpening and calling it done. Trying to proceed slowly till I figure out exactly what I’m going to do.

Here’s the pommel shot as requested:



Clean up is proceeding slowly:




David

[Xplorer]

..Here’s the pommel shot as requested:..

Thank you for the picture. Your knife indeed appears to be a first-run M4 bayonet. Judging by the configuration, the numbers and the starburst pattern that is almost worn away, it looks like the knife itself was most likely manufactured by the Imperial Knife Co. of Providence Road Island and the pommel was produced by a sub-contractor, Standard Products Co. of Port Clinton, Ohio. The numbers are the heat-treat batch #.

The blade was originally parkerized to inhibit corrosion so now that you've been cleaning up the blade, if you're not planning to parkerize it or blue it I would suggest at least forcing a patina to make sure it lasts for future generations.

Really cool piece you have there!

Congrats!

CK

[Canazes9]

..Here’s the pommel shot as requested:..

Thank you for the picture. Your knife indeed appears to be a first-run M4 bayonet. Judging by the configuration, the numbers and the starburst pattern that is almost worn away, it looks like the knife itself was most likely manufactured by the Imperial Knife Co. of Providence Road Island and the pommel was produced by a sub-contractor, Standard Products Co. of Port Clinton, Ohio. The numbers are the heat-treat batch #.

The blade was originally parkerized to inhibit corrosion so now that you've been cleaning up the blade, if you're not planning to parkerize it or blue it I would suggest at least forcing a patina to make sure it lasts for future generations.

Really cool piece you have there!

Congrats!

CK

Chad,

Thanks for the information! PM sent!

David

[Donut]

That blade is looking much better!