Preserving a knife handle

[Doug Kanter]

Just bought a Japanese weeding knife for a friend. It's got some sort of hardwood handle, but it's not treated with anything that I can see. When I bought the same tool for myself 20 years ago, I had a little bottle of some sort of oil made by Chicago Cutlery, but that's gone. I'd rather not buy a large can of something I'll only use once in a blue moon. Is plain vegetable oil good enough for something like this, just to make the wood a bit more immune to moisture? It won't be exposed to LOTS of water, just dropped on wet grass, frozen in the garage for 4 months, that sort of thing.

[Philip Lewis]

Mineral oil would be a good choice. vegitable oils are sometimes known to go rancid/sticky

I usually mix paraffin and mineral oil, melt over low heat, then heat the wood (steak knife handles and cooking spoons) in the oven to drive out moisture/open pores.

Then coat or dip the wood into the oil and let cool (soaking or not.)

[Doug Kanter]

[AAvK]

What I did for an untreated chef's knife handle, heated peanut oil, it's thick and solidifies in the fridge. I heated it and the knife handle over the kitchen stove. Got it real warm, used rolled up paper towel (thickly) and painted the hot oil into the hot handle several times over, intermitently reheating the handle as the oil stays hot on a medium-low flame. Works like a... well oiled handle, and no problem has occured with water wrecking it, no rancid smells either, and no greasiness from it.

Alex

[Robert Galloway]

What's been offered is OK. I'd ask, why not use something that polymerizes, rather than something that can be extracted again from the wood handle? Something like tung oil, alkyd varnish, even BLS will polymerize, seal the pores in the wood handle, not leach back out, would seem to be a longer term solution. I'd thing mineral and paraffin would require reapplication sooner than a thinned polyurethane/mineral spirit mix. BTW, I do use this combination on the kitchen stuff and have been satisfied with it. I'd think (haven't tried it) that mineral oil would deposit a little of itself on every towel you laid the knife on until most of the mineral oil leached back out. With something that polymerizes, once it's set, it's set.

bob g.

AAvK wrote:

[bridger]

I use equal parts parraffin wax and BLO. melt it, submerge the handle and leave it over heat until the bubbles stop coming out of the wood. give it a few days to dry and you have a very well protected handle with little surface build.

[Doug Kanter]

What's BLO?

[bridger]

boiled linseed oil

[Silvan]

Blonde Lingerie Oil. To get it, you have to remove the lingerie from a blonde, then extract the oil. (How you extract it is a secret, but it's fun.)

[bridger]

wow! I like that a lot better than the BLO I've been using. I'll have to try it....