How To Cellulite knife scales

And people wonder why newbys never stick around...

The material is celluloid. Soap and water is probably the best, but you have to know that it is an unstable material that will eventually self destruct, outgassing toxic material as it does. It will rust your steel and other materials. It should NEVER be stored with anything metal you want to keep unblemished. Museums keep celluloid objects in the freezer to preserve them.

If you notice any rust, and shrinkage of the scales, any dullness in the finish, any warping, etc, than it has started it's decomposition and cannot be saved. The only way to save the knife (or any other object with celluloid in it's assembly) is to remove that material and replace it with a modern plastic or (in the case of a knife) wood, bone, micarta, or another stable material.
 
Unshrunk yellow celluloid looks dirty on the back scale. A good attempt to clean this dirty cover the correct way seems to be a lost art.
 
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CaseL931 said:
How is Celluloid made anyway?
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I think you take cellulose (paper, cotton, etc.) and then nitrate it with nitric acid to make nitrocellulose, then mix it with something else.

Nitrocellulose is the same basic chemical as guncotton and the key ingredient of smokeless powder. Very flammable. They used to make film out of it, and it occasionally ignited in movie projectors due to the hot light bulb, making a big hot fire.
 
CaseL931 said:
How is Celluloid made anyway?
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Celluloid is an cellulose acetate. One of the biggest problems is that it used bark from the camphor trees as a cellulose source. Camphor is not stable and outgasses as camphor sulfide gas which is toxic. It's dangerous to breath, and highly corrosive. (Celluloid is also very dangerous to ingest.)
 
I have a Herbert Robinson straight razor with celluloid scales from the early 1900s. The scales are still in great shape, and haven't vaporized the carbon steel blade that they house. I'd just clean them with soap and water and dry them off afterward.
 
Everything contains the seeds of its own destruction.

Celluloid seeds are toxic flammable corrosive and unpredictable.

Luckily I find it ugly and never bought any knives with celluloid handles. The crazy part is it still pops up on modern knives?

As far as the confusion between celluloid and cellulite I blame The Kinks. The lyrics say celluloid, but it sounds like he is saying cellulite to me.

 
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