- Joined
- Feb 21, 2009
- Messages
- 666
I've seen some discussion lately about handle shrinkage, especially when it comes to chiruwa handles. I live in Las Vegas, so believe me, my handles shrink and I have to deal with a the rather uncomfortable feeling of the tang becoming proud of the handle slabs. I tried soaking in all kinds of oils, either completely submerged or doing thin layers for weeks on end, but nothing really plumped them up.
Then I found this thread (http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/555343-Handle-Rehydration-Before-After) in the Custom & Handmade forum and came up with my own solution. In summary, what the OP did was he took a bucket of water, put a vented/louvered shelf over the bucket, put his knives on that shelf, then put an oversized plexiglass box (I'm sure any impermeable box will do) so that it overhung the bucket. This rehydration chamber allowed water to naturally evaporate and flow through with ambient air slowly rehydrating the horn handle.
The OP in that thread says it took him 74 days to rehydrate the horn handle so that everything was flush. Taking the sample principle, I decided to speed it up. I threw a few of my khuks with shrunken handles in a cooler with a couple of glasses of water (set carefully into the cooler, not poured all over the knives!) and set it in the garage in the summer. You better believe the inside of the cooler was hot and humid, but it took less than a week for my wood handles to plump up back to where they fit flush (and a couple of them even plumper than that!). But here is where you can learn from my mistakes: I totally left them alone for a week so I was anticipating surface rust, even after applying a fine layer of mineral oil. But there were a couple (a beautiful WW2 and my AK Bowie) that had extensive, tiny rust pitting all over the blades!
All had some pitting, but thankfully most of them buffed out easily with a dremel buffing wheel attachment. But for some reason, my WW2 and AK Bowie were boned. I decided there was no way of saving those so I turned to the dark side and forced as dark a patina as possible. Now they look pretty evil and primal, as if forged by orcs, and are now my must used knives since I don't have to worry about marring their beautiful finishes.
Soooo, if you try the same trick, do a couple of things:
1. Cover your blade, bolster and all exposed metal fittings with a better preservative than mineral oil. Maybe try cosmoline. That should hold up to the humidity if you layer it on thick enough, but I've never tried that so I could be completely wrong.
2. Check your blades every day! If you start seeing rust getting through your metal preservative, address it immediately before it starts to pit.
3. Maybe do this indoors instead of in the summer heat. It might take a bit longer, but I think the very warm, wet air really put the rust into turbo drive.
4. After achieving the level of plumpness you desire, refinish your handles with something to lock in the moisture. I used Waterlox, which gave my handles a very shiny, beautiful finish. Since then, my handles haven't shrunk back at all!
If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share. I totally just did this as a last ditch effort and it worked, with those aforementioned caveats of course. Good luck!
Then I found this thread (http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/555343-Handle-Rehydration-Before-After) in the Custom & Handmade forum and came up with my own solution. In summary, what the OP did was he took a bucket of water, put a vented/louvered shelf over the bucket, put his knives on that shelf, then put an oversized plexiglass box (I'm sure any impermeable box will do) so that it overhung the bucket. This rehydration chamber allowed water to naturally evaporate and flow through with ambient air slowly rehydrating the horn handle.
The OP in that thread says it took him 74 days to rehydrate the horn handle so that everything was flush. Taking the sample principle, I decided to speed it up. I threw a few of my khuks with shrunken handles in a cooler with a couple of glasses of water (set carefully into the cooler, not poured all over the knives!) and set it in the garage in the summer. You better believe the inside of the cooler was hot and humid, but it took less than a week for my wood handles to plump up back to where they fit flush (and a couple of them even plumper than that!). But here is where you can learn from my mistakes: I totally left them alone for a week so I was anticipating surface rust, even after applying a fine layer of mineral oil. But there were a couple (a beautiful WW2 and my AK Bowie) that had extensive, tiny rust pitting all over the blades!
All had some pitting, but thankfully most of them buffed out easily with a dremel buffing wheel attachment. But for some reason, my WW2 and AK Bowie were boned. I decided there was no way of saving those so I turned to the dark side and forced as dark a patina as possible. Now they look pretty evil and primal, as if forged by orcs, and are now my must used knives since I don't have to worry about marring their beautiful finishes.
Soooo, if you try the same trick, do a couple of things:
1. Cover your blade, bolster and all exposed metal fittings with a better preservative than mineral oil. Maybe try cosmoline. That should hold up to the humidity if you layer it on thick enough, but I've never tried that so I could be completely wrong.
2. Check your blades every day! If you start seeing rust getting through your metal preservative, address it immediately before it starts to pit.
3. Maybe do this indoors instead of in the summer heat. It might take a bit longer, but I think the very warm, wet air really put the rust into turbo drive.
4. After achieving the level of plumpness you desire, refinish your handles with something to lock in the moisture. I used Waterlox, which gave my handles a very shiny, beautiful finish. Since then, my handles haven't shrunk back at all!
If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to share. I totally just did this as a last ditch effort and it worked, with those aforementioned caveats of course. Good luck!
