Which oil should I use?

Z

ZIVANOVIC

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Aug 27, 2019
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Can anyone please advise which is the best oil to apply to a new wooden knife handle? It is made from ebony.

I've read various items on the internet & the two most common ones being mentioned are Boiled Linseed oil or Danish oil.

Anyone got any helpful suggestions please as to the pros & cons of these?

I mainly use my knife in snowy & rainy weather.
 
That sounds like a fairly harsh environment. Are you sure you want an oil finish? Something like cyanoacrylate might hold up better I think.
 
The problem with cyanoacrylate is that it's not going to be a smooth finish.

I don't know oil I would use as I have never used oil's before but I wood been leaning more towards's an oil that way you can retreat the wood and no have to worry about messing up the finish.
 
wade7575 wade7575 CA takes a high polish.

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I like Linseed Oil or Boiled Linseed Oil followed with beeswax and mineral oil. Then just an occasional beeswax and mineral oil application (maybe once a year or so - more often for heavy use) to help seal against the elements. The Helle folder below was treated with three coats of BLO and then 3 applications of beeswax and mineral oil. The only down sides I can think of is that the treatment will darken and yellow the wood a bit (I rather like it), and periodic maintenance. The up side is that the finish is easy to repair and very comfortably smooth but not slick. This is also what I use on my axe hafts and I just refinished a rifle stock this way.

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Edit: This is what the knife looked like before I did anything to it:
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we have expensive ebony items and have used almond oil for decades, indoors. We put linseed on rosewood.
 
I generally use mineral oil on most of my wood handles, but if I were using primarily in wet weather or snow, I'd apply a wax product.
(I've had a can of Ren Wax on hand for years but there are other options that should serve well.)
 
Here are some thoughts from a past discussion LINK > > >
Ignore my blithering but there is some useful info there.
I've worked with ebony some for knives and other tools.
So far I have put nothing on it and it is fine.
I don't use those things in wet conditions however.
 
From what I understand, there's really only 2 oils for wood finishes, linseed and tung.
Teak and danish oils don't really exsist, except as marketing terms.

Ebony is already naturally oily and dense. It may be fine as is with just some wax every once in a while.
If I were to use an oil, my preference is 100% tung oil.
Under no circumstances would I put mineral oil on raw untreated wood.
 
jpm2 said:
Under no circumstances would I put mineral oil on raw untreated wood.
Click to expand...
Do you hear that big hollow expectant pause as if waiting for the second shoe to fall in a vast cavern . . . and silence our only companion . . . yet wait we must . . .
to find out . . .
. . .
why ?​
 
jpm2 said:
the wood fibers soak it up and swell, turning them into wet noodles, and weakening the wood forever
Click to expand...
ANNNNNNND we're back.
I needed a snack.
Before I got my snack I took out three super dry popsicle sticks that have been in my work shop for a decade or more (not from a wet 'sicle). I wiped a good wet coat of mineral oil on one of them (both sides, the edges and the ends) and left it lie while I got my snack.
Then without wiping off the oil (like one would do after coating a knife handle etc) I sprayed one of the popsicle sticks with filtered drinking water from the super market (no chlorine), rubbed in the water and immediately clamped it and the oiled one and a bare / dry control pop' stick to my vise pedestal. As you can see they are fairly straight / not warped.

I then clamped on three identical C-clamps and took photos.
The first clamp I put on the mineral oiled stick.
The water wet one bent way down as soon as I got the clamp on it and let it take the weight of the clamp.
Finally I put a clamp on the dry control stick.

We'll leave 'em a while and post more photos.

As far as swelling I have put like twenty applications of mineral oil (very thin Starrett Instrument oil so it would really get in there) on the ends of a few Opinels and the wood did not swell enough to notice any drag on the pivot. I even put it under a lamp to warm the oil while it soaked into the end grain and around the pivot. The same knives before any oil was put on would swell up tight to the point the blade could not be moved with less than a good drop of water (just a smear of water while washing the blade of one of the knives)

By the way the ambient of my shop is at 75° F.

PS : I read the signature of an uppity member here in the forums who was berating one of my friends here. In the signature he was banging on about "beliefs". I suppose those are pretty to think about and everything. As Hemingway used to say : Isn't it pretty to think so.
Personally I like facts. So much more substantial to trust ones weight to.
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Wowbagger said:
...I wiped a good wet coat of mineral oil on one of them (both sides, the edges and the ends)....
We'll leave 'em a while and post more photos.
...
As far as swelling I have put like twenty applications of mineral oil (very thin Starrett Instrument oil so it would really get in there) on the ends of a few Opinels and the wood did not swell enough to notice any drag on the pivot. I even put it under a lamp to warm the oil while it soaked into the edge grain and around the pivot.
Click to expand...
Keep oiling it, oil soaks in a lot slower than water, think magnitudes slower, but it eventually gets there.
I've watched 4x4's and 8x8's (like railroad ties) sit in oil over the years and slowly deteriorate to the point they start separating bad enough to get fingers in the voids.
 
I don't doubt you.
In fact I was surprised at the above results.
I just did this to basically see what would happen.
To see what we could see. As I said I will leave this set up for a while. Maybe a week.
Until it is in my way too much.

Something that hit me after the fact : The thin coating we would wipe on and soon wipe off a knife handle would be so minuscule and shallow that it could not possibly effect the strength of the knife.
Yes ?
No ?
 
It will only affect the fibers it soaks into. If a wood is naturally very oily, it might not hardly soak in at all.

With very oily woods I want to seal with tung oil, I soak the wood in rubbing alcohol for a while to remove some of the oil in the surface fibers first, let it completely dry, then apply tung.
 
Wowbagger said:
Here are some thoughts from a past discussion LINK > > >
Ignore my blithering but there is some useful info there.
I've worked with ebony some for knives and other tools.
So far I have put nothing on it and it is fine.
I don't use those things in wet conditions however.
Click to expand...

Me too.

I think the wood picks up a tiny coating of oil from your hands when you have used oil on the metal parts.

For me, this has always been the perfect amount to keep the wood in excellent condition.

I'm not complaining.......why mess up the perfect simple solution by pondering it too much?
 
I really like polymerized tung oil for most wood working projects. I haven't worked with ebony much. I think it may be oily enough that it doesn't need anything. But Birchwood-Casey Tru-Oil is probably the best bet if you do want to protect it. It's made for gun stocks and is a favorite of guitar builders, too. (I think it's a blend of tung and linseed oils) Comes in small bottles. A google search will get you plenty of opinions on whether or not ebony needs anything.
 
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Everything I've read about ebony suggests it's generally so dense, any 'finish' applied, oil or other, doesn't really penetrate at all. And by extension, because of it's natural density and (maybe) it's own oils, it really doesn't need anything else anyway. This isn't to say a finish like polyurethane couldn't be applied as a wear-resistant coating on the surface, per se. But I don't think much is needed on ebony to protect it, otherwise.

As for mineral oil, different woods handle it differently; some with no ill effects whatsoever. I have a scrap of 3/4" red oak I dropped into the oil bath bin I keep my oilstones in, to satisfy my curiosity about the effects of the oil on it. I did that a couple or more years ago, and that scrap of red oak has lived in there, submerged 24/7, ever since. Hasn't been fazed by it at all; no softening, no swelling, nothing. Woods differ greatly in their fibrous makeup, and some will absorb a lot of oil or other moisture, whereas other woods won't. I have noticed that the wood block (of unknown wood type) which supports my Tri-stone sharpening setup has softened over time, with the liberal use of mineral oil on the stones during sharpening. But otherwise, it hasn't swollen noticeably, nor is it falling apart or otherwise disintegrating as seems to be a fear for some. Curiously, the triangular wood block onto which the 3 stones are epoxied has NOT shown any of the same effects as seen with the base support.

As for application of mineral oil, I've yet to see any of my wood-handled knives harmed by a light sheen of it applied maybe 2 or 3 times a year. No soaking in it is necessary. Just a drop or two applied to the wood, rubbed in with the fingertips and allowed to sit for a few minutes, then wiped of the excess that hasn't penetrated. That's all I've ever done or needed for my knives handled in wood. Just enough to keep them from drying & cracking in my arid southwestern USA climate.
 
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