pakkawood...what makes that smell?

W

wphill

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Aug 22, 2014
Messages
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I ordered a japanese knife from a domestic website. Comes with a pakkawood
handle. I am accustomed to the poor fit and finish of j-knives. It's a trade off
for the steel and for what some consider a value price point. In this case, reasonably
priced but not super cheap. The handle reeks of a burnt plastic smell. Could it
be formaldehyde as part of the binder for the pressed fibers? I've sanded off
the laquer. Before I beef more about this to the seller, hoping this board
could better educate me. I'm a little worried that this smell is so strong even
after lengthy hot water and soap lathering, plus vinegar, BKF, etc etc that
this smell is not going to go away...though maybe it just needs to breathe?
 
Well, now that you have sanded it and washed it. I think it is yours!

Next time if you have an issue with a product, contact the seller first.
 
It might be the epoxy. I have several knives with Pakkawood scales and none of them give off a smell. There was an odor when I was sanding them.
 
To my nose, formaldehyde does not smell of burnt plastic. it's more likely the maker got the handle/tang hot while sanding the handle, assuming it's a composite handle with a lot of plastic in it and scale construction. If it's hidden tang perhaps the tang was "burned in" to the handle. Try baking soda?
 
Pakkawood is not lacquered, it's sanded and polished. It's made of thin strips of dyed wood that are glued together with phenolic resin under pressure. No wood fibers are compressed-they are saturated with the resin- much like stabilized wood. What you are smelling is the resin. Since you sanded the surface off, you exposed fresh material.
 
The phenolic resin will give off formaldehyde ! I had a Survive-knives with it's cotton canvas/phenolic resin that smelled .I removed the scales and put them outside in the summer sun .A couple of months later I remembered them --no more smell !!
 
Well, my plan is to let it sit in the sun....for a day or two. Not going to solve the problem but
may mitigate a little. Returning the knife was never in my plans...maybe it should have been a consideration,
but when one has a history of buying japanese kitchen knives, one comes to accept F&F issues. Taking
off protective lacquer from blade and scales comes a little too automatically. When I sanded it was using
wet/dry 220...flakes just constantly washed off. Solution is to seal the wood. One choice: shellac with a few
coats...that should "seal" it, but I need to then a protective coat over the shellac. A varnish would work but
I prefer something that does not have petroleum products. Yes, once cured, there should not be an issue. But,
it's still my preference to have something else. Small knive...80mm...small scales. Some people pure tung oil...which
is a nice way to go...the cons are that it takes a long time to dry and what's left in the bottle turns hard...slowly,
but surely. Oxygen is the fuel for polymerizing..or whatever the term is. I have lots of organic bees wax mixed with
various oils. I just don't know if that will protect the shellac. Pure flax seed oil is another consideration..something
that we have in the frig for seasoning carbon pans. Would thin coats buffed on do the trick and just forget the shellac?
 
We made a few thousand knives with Pakkawood handles here years ago and never had any complaints about the smell. It does have it's own smell when being worked though.
 
Why not just replace the pakkawood? I cant say I have ever noticed a smell to it other than when it was being sanded.
 
Pakkawood doesn't need sealing- unless you have sanded it to a very rough finish. It was designed to be polished.
If you feel the need to "seal" it, just put a coat of paste wax on it occasionally.
 
In most cases when someone complains about the "formaldehyde smell" of Micarta or Pakkawood, it is because they are getting it hot in grinding. The heat breaks down the phenolic resins and releases the formaldehyde gas. Use a slower speed, don't press so hard, and use fresh belts. Try that and I suspect the smell will be greatly reduced.
 
Appreciate all the responses.
If I may dumb it down...one view is to seal with something like: tung oil..and to some extent this is a necessity to protect and stop any offending smell ala bad chemicals.

The other view is that a wax (beeswax) is good enough, though it may need to be repeated over time.
Then there is Tim's view...just put on a nice new handle!

If I was to do it "right" I lean toward sealing it (shellac followed by a varnish and then a wax
However, being lazy, today, I will take it out of the sun and use a high end beeswax product that I have on hand...it has a mix of natural oils and does
great on furniture and leather. And, if that fails to seal in the smell...then I will have to undo it and go the way of the other options.

What's puzzling is whether or not the bad smell is proxy for bad chemicals.
 
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