Edge guards

I owned a set once for knives in my camp kit. I wasn't particularly impressed, much as you.

I say to live with the scratch. It's kind of like a car and that first scratch is an emotional doozey. Just live with it knowing that scratches are a badge of honest use and in some eyes lend character to the blade and make it yours.

You can polish out the scratches but it's tricky to do well. And you'll have to do the whole blade so it looks even as matching the existing finish will be difficult.

Power equipment is the best solution, but it's not the kind of equipment people commonly have. Nor the experience to use it right. A knife sharpening service may have a polishing wheel or belt and would be the best bet. Some jewelers/watch places have the polishing wheels too, but they probably won't pay the right attention to temperature as the blades can get hot doing this.

If you have any hobby knife makers in your area, they'll probably have the equipment and skill needed as well.

If you can't find someone to do this, you can do it with wet dry sandpaper. I wouldn't recommend power tools for you if you have no experience. No dremel and the polishing bits. (voice of experience here)

I have had some success with an orbital hand sander and wet dry sandpaper. Note this was on a Swiss Army knife that the previous owner had taken to a dremel or grinding wheel with disastrous results. Still looks pretty bad but it's improving.



After some more work (not a great pic as the steel looks better than this but I'm no photo pro)



You'll notice I incorporated the pre-existing chip into a recurve. I can't really go much further with this one as there isn't enough knife to really work with. It's now much more functional though and certainly looks better.

Why would I bother with "restoring" a cheap SAK? Well, this is a rare-ish discontinued military model I picked up a bunch of cheap. So I'm practicing some skills and customizing scales and such. Minor hobby stuff.

Phil

My experience has been that the knife guards are more trouble than they are worth. Initially I bought some for my very first set of henckels but they became such a pain to deal with and pack away each evening. In my early days I had a toolbox like all good culinary students and what worked the best was to fill the shelves of the box with styrofoam and then cut out the size for your knife. The only problem with this is if you are not diligent about cleaning your knife otherwise the foam gets filthy and contaminated and stinks after a while.

Later my kit was very slim I had a chef's knife, steel, boning knife, pairing knife (2) a zester and clam knife and that was it. I also never brought any really expensive knives to work it was just too dangerous to have them stolen.

Hope that helps.

At home my knives stay in a knife block, so there's no need for sleeves.

For my travel kit, where the knives can bump against each other and other tools, I made my own sleeves out of light cardboard (what we used to call oaktag, but which now has another name). Each knife has its own, custom fitted to it. Never had any trouble with the sleeves, nor with damage to any of the knives.

To make them, measure the widest part of the blade, and its length. Then create a three-fold type tube from the oaktag. Two sides are the width of the blade at it's widest point. The third is only a third to half as wide.

To make the folds, lightly score the cardboard, so you cut the surface skin but not much deeper. Then coat the inside of the smaller fold with glue, fold the thing together, and clamp it until the glue is dry.

That's all it takes.

Alternatively, you can make sleeves out of rawhide. But those require sewing, rather than gluing, and are much more time consuming.

Get Messermeister Edge Guards. They work great.

I use the already described cardboard method with cerial box type cardboard and a butt load of duct tape to hold shape and fortify.

Works like a charm even while banging around in my knife roll on my back.

Nice choice in knife. I got one for my friend as a gift and can attest to the quality first hand... I sharpen if for him and as soon as you get a feel for deburring it, it sharpens wonderfully.

What size did you buy?

If this is for a Japanese knife, a great many Japanese dealers make wooden sheaths for their knives. They can be custom-fit in the store, but apparently the dealer you worked with didn't provide or offer these. You might consider buying such a sheath (usually made of magnolia wood) by mail-order. The custom-fitting is certainly not difficult, and I'd bet if you look around on the web you can find an explanation of how to do it.

Custom-fitted, I paid between $7 and $13 each for mine, so they're not exactly pricey.

As long as you have the cardboad folded tightly enough the pressure will be on the sides of the blade and not the edge so it will be fine. The duct tape is also so that it doesnt slide through, so I triple or quadrupell layer the tape. No malfunctions for a couple months now carrying it back and forth to work in a knife roll.