Fixing a bayonet?

W

Wrothgar

Moderator
I just got a K31 a while ago with a bayonet. The tip of the bayonet is a little bent, and there is some dried up/caked on something or other (blood ;)?). I tried some CLP to clean it up, no luck. Is there any way to unbend it and straighten it? Also, its not sharp; would it be bad to sharpen it?
 
Yes it would be bad to sharpen it. It would reduce it's value.

The odds of the "crud" being blood are quite low.

Find a local knife maker, or even a blacksmith and they should be able to straighten out your bayonet.
 
The crud is most likely cosmolene that is sitting in the scabbard. I've found that soaking metal scabbards in Dawn dish soap for several hours does wonders for getting cosmo out of them. Just squirt the soap into the scabbard, no water is needed until you go to clean it out.
 
So, why can't I sharpen it? Did they never sharpen it? If they had it sharp, then dulled it, I don't see how resharpening it would lower its value.
 
Those Swiss never killed anybody
Click to expand...

Actually there were unrecorded skirmishes with German troops on the boarder, nothing that made the history books. The Swiss are well armed and trained in marksmanship, one reason they have never been invaded.

About sharpening a bayonet. Most military bayonets are not sharpened from the manufacturer. Some were sharpened after being issued by troops. Collectors prefer to have bayonets in their original condition, so a sharpened bayonet has reduced value. The K-31 bayonet is rather spendy, 80-100 bucks is the normal street price for one in good condition. The K-31 is sharpened from the manufacturer, most are Elsener Schwyz of Swiss Army knife fame. It has a narrow ground edge on both sides of the blade, it is also a very fine point.

K31bayonet.jpg
 
Most bayonet are made relatively dull for a reason: a thick sharpened edge or point is both stronger and more damaging. Bayonets are a glorified spearhead, not a slashing blade. They are intended to be stuck into the torso and TWISTED, creating a massive jagged hole, not to slash across the limbs to produce narrow cuts.

To get the same kind of edge that you get on a normal knife, you'd have to do a LOT of metal removal, which would pretty much ruin any collectability and make it look pretty crummy anyways.
 
Excellent; thanks for the tips! I'll see about getting the point straightened. I think the closest thing to a knife maker around here would be Ted Nugent.
 
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