Make Bone Shiny Again?

I

ISKRA

Joined
Sep 19, 2016
Messages
1,292
Hello chaps, I've got another question for you. :)
I recently tried to give my peanut some colour to personalize it a bit more. I tried the tea method and ...... it didn't really work all that much. :grumpy: Luckily I didn't ruin anything, but the bone isn't as shiny now as it originally was. Not necessarily a bad thing, it gives it a more worn look, but nevertheless. Is there a trick or method how to polish the bone scales with minimal effort and especially tools? Say, something that'd do well by just using hands or so? I doubt we have anything except a car polishing mashine at home and I think dad threw even that one out last weekend while cleaning up the garage. Excuse if it's a dump question, but asking never hurt nobody, or as we say here "a word is not a horse". :D
Thank you in advance!

Cheers

Jean
 
About the easiest way that I know of, is to apply a thin layer of mineral oil to the bone and then hand buff it with a piece of old cotton t-shirt. Sort of like buff shining a shoe.
 
I'd recommend sticking it in your pocket and carrying it and use it as a worry-stone whenever you can get away with it. It will not polish the bottom of the jigging, if the jigging is coarse. I did it to my STJ which has pretty aggressive jigging. The "peaks" are very shiny but the "valleys" in the jigging are still kind of matte. Sorry, no pics of that one, but here's a shot of my heavily carried 15, the bone is extremely glossy on this one form carry - quite a bit shinier than when I got it:

20160518_120903.jpg
 
I've also had good luck with mineral oil. Although, I usually let the knife get a good thick coating and then just let it sit for a few hours/ overnight And then buff and wipe the excess off.
 
Tilley Knife said:
About the easiest way that I know of, is to apply a thin layer of mineral oil to the bone and then hand buff it with a piece of old cotton t-shirt. Sort of like buff shining a shoe.
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This is a good suggestion as well - soaking in oil then buffing with something soft. I got a late-90s case, the bone was all gross and chalky from being very dry and unhandled. I left it to soak in mineral oil for a few days so the bone could soak up the oil - came out looking spectacular, then I used a rag to clean off the excess. it worked really well, and it wouldn't surprise me the tea dried it out, or even left a residue like you'll find on the inside of a well-used teacup :)
 
Arathol said:
Ummmm......no. Not if you like the bone slabs the way they are. A power buffer can really do bad things to a bone handle.
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Even a rag wheel? you know the ones theyre very soft and pliable more so than the pad type ones you load with compound.
but yeah I'm totally suss of power buffing.
cheers.
Gotta say I like the shoeshine idea best.
 
I have used a little bit of Sno-Seal, which is mostly beeswax. I have had pretty good results with smooth bone, but haven't tried it on jigged bone.
 
Leather belt made into a strop with some green buffing compound on it. Works really well on bolsters, and on the bone too, it's one thing that revives dull faded horn handles too.

If the tea dye didn't work maybe you a) didn't clean the knife with alcohol first, old school lighter fuel is fine. This ensures it's degreased. b) used weak tea, got to be strong!
 
I suggested a light coat of mineral oil and buffing because soaking the bone in mineral oil may make it more difficult to attempt a re-dye in the near future. Once you achieve the desired color of the bone, soaking it in mineral will "seal the deal".
 
Thank you all, chaps, great suggestions. The bone does seem to be kind of dried out, especially the mark side, so I'll go for the oil.
Will Power, I cleaned it alright, must have been the tea then ...
Tilley Knife, no worries, I think the peanut's got enough tea for some time now. :D

Can I use parafine oil? It's a sort of mineral oil, isn't it?
 
ISKRA said:
Can I use parafine oil? It's a sort of mineral oil, isn't it?
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I have no experience using paraffin oil so I hesitate to say yes or no. I often use baby oil with no issues. It's simply mineral oil with added fragrances.
 
Tilley Knife said:
I have no experience using paraffin oil so I hesitate to say yes or no. I often use baby oil with no issues. It's simply mineral oil with added fragrances.
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Paraffin oil is usually poured in wine barrels to form a protective layer between the wine and the air, which prevents wine to spoil. It too is safe for sonsumption. I won't get home before the weekend so I can't try anything before friday or most probably saturday, but since we have a vineyard at home, there probably is some paraffin oil in the wine cellar somewhere, otherwise I'll go and buy some. Thanks for the heads up on baby oil. :thumbup:
 
Iskra as far as I know, paraffin oil (aka liquid paraffin) is mineral oil and it can be a kind of laxative..:eek::D.but as you say, it's food safe! Those of use who use British English rather than American, are always alarmed by the word 'paraffin' as it's a kind of fuel or heating oil, what the Americans call kerosene....:eek:

But varieties of English are always nice and sometimes amusing.
 
Will Power said:
Iskra as far as I know, paraffin oil (aka liquid paraffin) is mineral oil and it can be a kind of laxative..:eek::D.but as you say, it's food safe! Those of use who use British English rather than American, are always alarmed by the word 'paraffin' as it's a kind of fuel or heating oil, what the Americans call kerosene....:eek:

But varieties of English are always nice and sometimes amusing.
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Supposedly I use British English as well, at least that's what I was tought in school, practise is a bit different. :D I knew the Slovene version of the word (parafin) but didn't bother looking it up, so I first wrote parafine, then paraffin, god knows ... I'm deffinetly trying it out tomorrow though.
 
Metal paste polishes like Flitz or Simichrome have worked nicely for me, in restoring some gloss to bone-handled Case knives of mine. I use an old cotton t-shirt to rub it on, and then buff it off with the same t-shirt. I think Simichrome is a bit faster-working than Flitz, but either can work to the same end results.

If the bone is light colored (white or 'natural' bone), you might take care to minimize how much the adjacent metal bolsters are polished with the paste polish. You can mask the bolsters with masking/painter's tape to simplify that. If the adjacent metal gets a lot of the polish, the blackened swarf from the metal can be rubbed into the light colored bone and darken it near the bolsters. Even so, when done only by hand (no powered tools), it isn't very deep; I've used a Windex-moistened rag to clean that up, with good results. And alternatively, the paste polish itself will work to clean a lot of that up, so long as it's applied clean (no metal swarf) to the bone only.

Edited to add:
In trying it again today with Simichrome on my Case 6375 CV Amber Bone stockman, the staining I mentioned above, from metal swarf being rubbed on the bone, is a non-issue. The Amber Bone on my knife is very light cream color near the bolsters, and it still came away looking clean & nicely glossy. If done by hand, I wouldn't worry.


David
 
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Thank you all for your advice, I'm now soaking it in paraffin oil. I plan to let it sit in it till saturday and then I'll see.
 
I would keep a close eye on it. A while back a friend of mine left a knife in a glass full of mineral oil. The scales swelled up proud of the bolsters. In addition to mineral oil, I use lemon oil, which is furniture oil so it penetrates a bit. And smells good.
 
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