- Joined
- Feb 15, 2002
- Messages
- 1,705
I'll add this to the maintenance thread eventually but thought I'd post it here first. It's so dry out here in Colorado that your nose bleeds in the winter (no lie). Winter is also much dryer than summer and summer is definitely dry compared to where I grew up in North Carolina. Organic handle material of all kinds will shrink, sometimes with disasterous results. I decided to experiment with a rehydration method and by gawd it works!
I've done this with several knives now. The results have been excellent with zero complications. People have asked, "Will it rust the blade etc.?" Uhhh.... no.
A picture is worth a thousand words so see for yourself:
Ricardo Vilar's sheep horn handle shrunk badly, to say the least. It is now almost exactly like it was when I bought it from him in Atlanta at BLADE about three years ago. You may not be able to fully tell by the picture but the pins are now flush with the handle and there is no gap at the front of the handle. There remains a small gap on the lower half of handle/butt cap junction that admits a very thin piece of paper. I will return this knife to my hydration chamber for another month and see if that goes away too. I bet it will.
Here's a crude drawing of my rehydration chamber:
My experience is that sheep horn takes longer than ivory of any type. Wood is variable with softer, more open grain woods being faster to rehydrate than denser tight grain woods. Bone rehydrates relatively quickly too.
My strategy has been to rehydrate a handle in need, then apply Butcher's (bowling alley) Wax to retard shrinkage. I can't say if this will make a difference long term since I have also attempted to add a bit of humidity to areas in my home where knives are displayed or stored. But to my way of thinking wax offers more protection than say, mineral oil. I could be wrong but as long as I'm able to control handle shrinkage I probably won't worry about which product is better.
I've done this with several knives now. The results have been excellent with zero complications. People have asked, "Will it rust the blade etc.?" Uhhh.... no.
A picture is worth a thousand words so see for yourself:
Ricardo Vilar's sheep horn handle shrunk badly, to say the least. It is now almost exactly like it was when I bought it from him in Atlanta at BLADE about three years ago. You may not be able to fully tell by the picture but the pins are now flush with the handle and there is no gap at the front of the handle. There remains a small gap on the lower half of handle/butt cap junction that admits a very thin piece of paper. I will return this knife to my hydration chamber for another month and see if that goes away too. I bet it will.
Here's a crude drawing of my rehydration chamber:
My experience is that sheep horn takes longer than ivory of any type. Wood is variable with softer, more open grain woods being faster to rehydrate than denser tight grain woods. Bone rehydrates relatively quickly too.
My strategy has been to rehydrate a handle in need, then apply Butcher's (bowling alley) Wax to retard shrinkage. I can't say if this will make a difference long term since I have also attempted to add a bit of humidity to areas in my home where knives are displayed or stored. But to my way of thinking wax offers more protection than say, mineral oil. I could be wrong but as long as I'm able to control handle shrinkage I probably won't worry about which product is better.