- Joined
- May 24, 2005
- Messages
- 3,249
I picked up an old Sykes British combat dagger at a surplus/antique shop.It's kinda rough and I was looking for advice on how to bring it back to it's former glory.Any advice would do.
Help caring for an old Sykes combat dagger.
- Thread starter savagesicslayer
- Start date
- Joined
- Apr 27, 1999
- Messages
- 6,117
Before you do much "improvement" on it you should verify that it isn't a rare variety. What pattern is on the handle? What is the shape of the crossguard.
Take a look on the following webpage and see if you recognize your dagger there:
http://www.snyderstreasures.com/pages/edged_weapons.htm
If it's not a rare model you could first start by cleaning the metal parts of the knife with a light oil like 3-in-1 or a gun oil. Clean that off with rubbing alcohol. I'd have to know what particular problems the knife has before making other suggestions.
Take a look on the following webpage and see if you recognize your dagger there:
http://www.snyderstreasures.com/pages/edged_weapons.htm
If it's not a rare model you could first start by cleaning the metal parts of the knife with a light oil like 3-in-1 or a gun oil. Clean that off with rubbing alcohol. I'd have to know what particular problems the knife has before making other suggestions.
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2001
- Messages
- 343
First thing to note, any cleaning could ruin the original blueing (that's if - there was any to begin with)
If you care about value its best to leave it be and ocassionally coat blade with some gun oil.
More importantly, never leave a carbon blade inside its sheath during storage.
However, if that's not a matter with you; you could sand down the blade to remove deep rusting/imperfections. And then polish it up with fine abrasive metal polish and "gun blue/cold blue" the bare carbon steel blade. If your's is a third pattern zinc handle F/S, you would find that the handle has been coated in a black paint. If its all worn out you could use a chemical paint stripper and wipe of all traces of the original paint and then mask off the guard/main blade before you apply a good coat of durable matt/satin finish metal/enamel spray paint. Best of luck.
Krizzard, out
"...Whoever kills with the sword must be killed by the sword... "
- The New Testament, Revelation 13:10
If you care about value its best to leave it be and ocassionally coat blade with some gun oil.
More importantly, never leave a carbon blade inside its sheath during storage.
However, if that's not a matter with you; you could sand down the blade to remove deep rusting/imperfections. And then polish it up with fine abrasive metal polish and "gun blue/cold blue" the bare carbon steel blade. If your's is a third pattern zinc handle F/S, you would find that the handle has been coated in a black paint. If its all worn out you could use a chemical paint stripper and wipe of all traces of the original paint and then mask off the guard/main blade before you apply a good coat of durable matt/satin finish metal/enamel spray paint. Best of luck.
Krizzard, out
"...Whoever kills with the sword must be killed by the sword... "
- The New Testament, Revelation 13:10