Well, someone left me a present...with a butterfly on it.

[armoredman]

I found a Benchmade Auto Stryker left in a locker I was using. Called the person who had that locker last, and they swore they hadn't left anything in it. It was shoved in a corner where it was VERY hard to see, and I found it completely by accident, so it could have been there a long time.
I don't have a picture here to post, but picture an Auto Stryker - now abuse it. The previous owner used the hilt as a hammer once or eighteen times, and it has plenty of character wear, as well as scratches on the blade, (anodizing? Paint? What is that finish?) from plenty of hard use. The blade has a couple of small nicks near the tip, but it's still sharp. It was VERY slow opening, needed a little oil to smooth out and speed it back up to what I saw online. That part makes me wonder just how long it was sitting tucked away in that dark corner...Oh, yes, auto knives are completely legal down here - my favorite LGS has a display of $6 mini switchblades at the counter next to the register, one last piece of Chinese junk to buy on the way out.
So, long story short - would a regular local knife sharpener, a professional, be able to remove those nicks? I was looking at maybe having Benchmade do a kind of restore, but the website says original purchaser only, and automatic knives have to go through an authorized dealer, can't ship it myself. This is actually my second Benchmade, and the other one, a Resistor, was a gift, so seeing what they actually cost was quite a sticker shock - I had only been carrying a Leatherman before that gentleman gifted me the Resistor.
Just curious what real knife people would know.

 

[JohnKSa]

There's no magic to repairing edge damage. It's just like sharpening the knife, except that you have to take off enough metal to re-establish the new edge along a curve that goes through the bottom of the deepest nick. If you take it to someone who knows how to sharpen a knife, they will be able to take the nicks out of the blade. Just be aware that they may charge more than usual as it takes a lot more work to take off the metal required to eliminate a chip or nick on the edge.

When I sharpen knives for people, if the blade has a chip or nick, I give them the option of having me take it all the way out or to just sharpen the knife as I normally would and leave the nick as it is.

If it's a blade that is going to continue to see hard/continual use, it's probably better to sharpen the blade normally and leave the damage alone. As the blade wears/dulls with use and needs to be resharpened, eventually the nick/chip will disappear as metal is removed during the repeated sharpenings. A small nick won't really hurt cutting performance much and leaving it alone will lengthen the useful life of a knife that sees a lot of use.

If the knife isn't going to see hard use or the owner wants to see a perfect edge then I will take off as much metal as required to re-establish a new edge without the nick/chip. This can take a lot of life off of the blade. Removing even a relatively small chip takes off as much metal as would normally be lost after many sharpening cycles. But if the knife is only rarely sharpened it's pretty much a non-issue because of how long it would take for the knife to actually wear down significantly from sharpening.

I have a couple of knives that I have used for long enough and sharpened enough times that I had to eventually adjust the kick so that the tip didn't come up out of the handle and snag on things when the knife was closed. The Spyderco Worker that I carried for about 20 years lost about a quarter of an inch of blade length from metal ground away during sharpening.

 

[armoredman]

That was exactly what I wanted to know, thank you.

 

[armoredman]

Local shop said I have to get official blessing from Benchmade before sending it in. Ok, next step I guess.