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How To Using hydrogen peroxide to change a knife color
- Thread starter Camillus
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AnW
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Ok I gave it some orange and brown RIT dye and here is the outcome
Overall I am satisfied with the color, it’s an improvement. However the RIT dye process did leave a couple of small blemishes on the steel - even though I taped up all the exposed parts. Just shows how careful you have to be and how risky it is. The camel bone was also trickier to dye than cow bone - I wasn’t surprised to see some color variation, especially on the pile side, as I knew I would have difficulty getting it even.
The lustre has returned to the bone but I would describe it as satin, whereas the goldenrod knives I would say are gloss. I am not sure if I can improve this but I will give it a go.
Very nice! Did you mix the two dyes or did you do one then the other?
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Thanks, I am ok with it - I have some really good and not so good outcomes using dye and this is one of the better ones, but not the best. It lacks a little ‘pop’, but maybe that is because I am comparing it against gold colored ones which are really striking.
I mixed tangerine and dark brown. Looking for that burnt toffee look. I kind of achieved it in the darker spots.
I mixed tangerine and dark brown. Looking for that burnt toffee look. I kind of achieved it in the darker spots.
Jeff Mitchell
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Very cool. How did you apply the dye to the bone? I had assumed that you'd dip the entire knife in, but looks maybe you brushed it on..???
Rockon75
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I can't see your images. Your removal process looked awesome, need to see me some dye pics. Can anyone else see them? Is it just me?I had the pot of dye sitting there and I couldn’t help myself and decided to give it another 5 minutes in the dye.
Much better! The consistency and the toffee color I was aiming for.
Jeff Mitchell
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It does look great. So just to confirm, you are placing the entire knife into the dye solution.?? I guess it's impossible to tape off all metal parts such as the blade well.
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The water with the dye in it only goes up to the bolster. The blades are extended up above the waterline to try and keep them dry.
Although this method protects the blades well enough, I haven’t had a great record stopping the backsprings from staining in the dye. Tape helps, but I find that the water will still find a way around it sometimes. Even then, the dye doesn’t always stain, staining seems to be most likely to occur if the dye granules haven’t fully dissolved. (The stain just looks like patina, so it isn’t an issue for user knives)
The stain is the darker spots on the springs between my fingers. Quite hard to photograph. This is after a hard scrub with metal polish.
Other people may be better at it than me. We are all learning from each other.
Although this method protects the blades well enough, I haven’t had a great record stopping the backsprings from staining in the dye. Tape helps, but I find that the water will still find a way around it sometimes. Even then, the dye doesn’t always stain, staining seems to be most likely to occur if the dye granules haven’t fully dissolved. (The stain just looks like patina, so it isn’t an issue for user knives)
The stain is the darker spots on the springs between my fingers. Quite hard to photograph. This is after a hard scrub with metal polish.
Other people may be better at it than me. We are all learning from each other.
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Jeff Mitchell
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Thanks for all of the info. Now I need to pick a victim..... I mean knife to dye.
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Not sure about patina. I think the best option would involve some type of masking coat, whether that is patina or something else. I think some type of paint would work best. It needs to adhere to the steel and then be removable. There are masking products around e.g. https://www.sharrettsplating.com/blog/metal-part-masking/ and https://galvanizeit.org/masking-materials-for-preventing-hot-dip-galvanizing I think something like that would work better than tape. But there are higher quality tapes available as well - I was just using ordinary painter’s tape.
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Will Power
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I think you're wise to protect the blade with tape, even ordinary patina would not, I believe, offer protection against pitting and that's what will happen with chemicals and boiling water.
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I would suggest leather dye if you want to try another medium. Its alcohol based. Really easy and pretty quick.
Some threads here have mentioned bone cracking with the boiling method.
You achieved good results, at any rate.
So, I read this thread and decided to try it on my black bone TC sheepfoot. You might say "but hey, there's no black bone TC". And you'd be right. My first GEC was a sheepfoot TC in smooth ivory bone. A while back it was looking kind of scuffed up, so for some reason I decided to try the tea bath dye. It turned out horribly. So badly that I decided I needed to dye it. So I dyed it black. After a while the black started to lighten up, so I added a layer of red. It looked kinda cool, but I decided after a while it looked better plain black. So I dyed it again.
So this knife has seen a lot.
Before trying this peroxide method:
After about a day in peroxide:
After 2 30 minute baths in black RIT dye (~1tbsp) dish soap (~1tsp) and boiling water (poured at boiling, but let to cool once poured):
I think the key to redyeing is actually actively boiling the water/soap/dye solution while the knife is in it. So I'm going to redye it that way once goodwill opens back up and I can get a disposable pot.
The last time I dyed this knife my wife wasn't too happy with the permanently stained pot
So this knife has seen a lot.
Before trying this peroxide method:
After about a day in peroxide:
After 2 30 minute baths in black RIT dye (~1tbsp) dish soap (~1tsp) and boiling water (poured at boiling, but let to cool once poured):
I think the key to redyeing is actually actively boiling the water/soap/dye solution while the knife is in it. So I'm going to redye it that way once goodwill opens back up and I can get a disposable pot.
The last time I dyed this knife my wife wasn't too happy with the permanently stained pot
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I gotta admit I wouldn’t be game to try on a TC barlow. Those are special. But it sounds like that one has had a journey!
Surprised to see that the H2O2 didn’t work on the knife handles. Were you getting tiny bubbles on the handle and metalwork? My experience is that it just eats the color.
Black is a very difficult color to dye. I had a similar blotchy look once when I tried black RIT dye. But your earlier dye method worked.
I definitely think boiling water is the way to go. Good luck.
Surprised to see that the H2O2 didn’t work on the knife handles. Were you getting tiny bubbles on the handle and metalwork? My experience is that it just eats the color.
Black is a very difficult color to dye. I had a similar blotchy look once when I tried black RIT dye. But your earlier dye method worked.
I definitely think boiling water is the way to go. Good luck.