White Smooth Bone Oil Stains

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Mar 1, 2018
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Does anyone have any advise for oiling white smooth bone knives? I usually oil the pivot area when I get a new traditional folder and work the action to smooth it up and lubricate the knife. This has never been a problem except when it comes to knives with white smooth bone handles. I use Benchmade blue knife lube, but it leaves oil stains in the white smooth bone handles (they seem to soak up the oil) after a couple of days. I do not overly apply the oil, and make every attempt to soak up any excess oil with a tissue. The resulting oil stains are unsightly, but I also don't want to live with a gritty action. Perhaps a different brand of oil or none at all?
 
Does anyone have any advise for oiling white smooth bone knives? I usually oil the pivot area when I get a new traditional folder and work the action to smooth it up and lubricate the knife. This has never been a problem except when it comes to knives with white smooth bone handles. I use Benchmade blue knife lube, but it leaves oil stains in the white smooth bone handles (they seem to soak up the oil) after a couple of days. I do not overly apply the oil, and make every attempt to soak up any excess oil with a tissue. The resulting oil stains are unsightly, but I also don't want to live with a gritty action. Perhaps a different brand of oil or none at all?
Even if the oil you use is perfectly colorless, it can transfer dirt and verdigris from brass liners and pins into the bone. Perhaps a thorough cleaning with soap and water before applying the oil?
I don't worry about it too much, and just accept that white bone will show age, sort of like a patina on steel.
It'll look beautiful after a hundred years or so:
UGjsI29.jpg
 
r8shell r8shell Offers very sound advice, a good wash&brush up with warm soapy water and a toothbrush gets rid of the blackening compounds left over from buffing- oil just solidifies and dilutes them gradually. I use Coconut oil in pivots and to enhance shine on handles. another approach it to deliberately let your White Smooth Bone knives get exposed to Mineral or Coconut/Olive oils, they will soak up some-such is the nature of smooth bone, you then get this desirable yellowing patina on the handles.

M1WrqW1.jpg
 
Just make sure the knife is clean before oiling. Wash in warm/hot water with some liquid dish detergent, while working the pivots (opening/closing). Then rinse it all out, dry everything and apply some plain, food-grade mineral oil. The food-grade mineral oil is completely colorless and odorless. As long as the knife is clean, the oil by itself can't discolor the bone.

And oil it minimally. Maybe 1 drop per blade pivot, and a drop or two for the springs. Any excess oil will just get gummy and collect any dirt that touches it.

If the knife is handled & used regularly, the bone will still color at least somewhat over time. But the warm 'yellowing' that inevitably happens is just part of the well-aged character of it, as is the dark oxide patina for the blades.
 
Thank you for the replies. WSB is probably my favorite handle material and I hated to see it stained, but over time I suppose it is going to change color one way or another. I just never had it happen to other knives, such as orange smooth bone.
 
Use mineral oil, super cheap and very readily available at any pharmacy, and shouldn't stain the bone so easily.

Best of all just don't worry that much, you never know If something you didn't realize was on your hand will transfer to the knife.

Day 1


And 2 months later when some leather dye on my hand leached off.


White smooth bone looks much better with age than it does all white and new.
 
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I've found that if you sharpen with oil stones, the excess oil can carry the honed off steel into the bone. I've never been able to keep undyed bone pristine, so I don' try.

I personally do not use colored lube with any knife though. Before BM had blue lube, they used reccomend tuff glide and before that triflow.
 
r8shell r8shell Offers very sound advice, a good wash&brush up with warm soapy water and a toothbrush gets rid of the blackening compounds left over from buffing- oil just solidifies and dilutes them gradually. I use Coconut oil in pivots and to enhance shine on handles. another approach it to deliberately let your White Smooth Bone knives get exposed to Mineral or Coconut/Olive oils, they will soak up some-such is the nature of smooth bone, you then get this desirable yellowing patina on the handles.

M1WrqW1.jpg

that ones always been a beaut every time I see it. Ive seen some examples where the smooth bone got all dried out from wear and handling but never that one
 
mrknife mrknife Thanks! My Ivory Bone Beer Scout has not fared so well though...a few cracks/chips and a drying out plus brass bleed. I think it's because it was used to cut Limes/Lemons which got in the bone plus beer/cider slops- it's a bit of a wreck now :D
 
mrknife mrknife Thanks! My Ivory Bone Beer Scout has not fared so well though...a few cracks/chips and a drying out plus brass bleed. I think it's because it was used to cut Limes/Lemons which got in the bone plus beer/cider slops- it's a bit of a wreck now :D

that is what I worry about for my smooth boned scaled knives. Beautiful to hold and coonfinger but carry? chips cracks cometh soon. Heck even the jigged bone 92 I carry has been splintering.
 
that is what I worry about for my smooth boned scaled knives. Beautiful to hold and coonfinger but carry? chips cracks cometh soon. Heck even the jigged bone 92 I carry has been splintering.
Is there any reason that smooth bone would be more prone to chips and cracks? Or is it a matter of the cracks showing?
 
Is there any reason that smooth bone would be more prone to chips and cracks? Or is it a matter of the cracks showing?

I have kept my smooth boned knives stored away. I take them out every once in awhile to look at and admire. But I figured most smooth bone as you carry, it loses that sheen which is possibly a coating or treatment. Just from going in the pocket, knocking about coins and keys would likely nick it or chip it eventually. Possibly as the coating wears off and that bone is exposed to the environment of hot and cold, wet and dry it eventually cracks? I do have a specific bunch of dailies and some of them are either jigged bone or sawcut. However I am sure there is some compound that is applied to prevent it from breaking down. Dont get me wrong, Id love to carry a smooth boned knife because of the character it accumulates, but I dont have too many as it is, so the ones I do own, I really admire them in a collecting stand point.
 
Is there any reason that smooth bone would be more prone to chips and cracks? Or is it a matter of the cracks showing?

I'd be willing to bet, it's more about the smooth surface showing imperfections in a more obvious way. Kind of like a mirrored finish on a blade, upon which any scratch stands out like a sore thumb. Or the first chip or crack in a new windshield on your car (which often grows into a lengthy crack). Any nick, scratch, crack or divot on pristine, smooth-finished bone will be impossible to hide. But a jigged surface can hide a lot of other possible flaws in bone, if they're there.

Bone, being a natural material, is inherently variable in it's 'grain' or uniformity. I'm sure that some bone covers will just be 'bad' in one way or another, like a piece of wood, and more prone to checking (cracking/splitting) or chipping. But I doubt the finish has much influence on that, if any. If anything, I'd expect the 'divots' created in jigging bone would actually tend to weaken the piece, rather than make it more durable. I have one knife, a Moki, with beautiful red, jigged covers on it. But the jigging pattern is very dense, with each recess very close to the next, and the 'ridges' dividing them are very thin. On that knife, I've noticed more than once, those thin 'ridges' between the jigging are prone to chipping away. Little pepper-fleck fragments come off of it, nearly every time I handle it.
 
I'd be willing to bet, it's more about the smooth surface showing imperfections in a more obvious way. Kind of like a mirrored finish on a blade, upon which any scratch stands out like a sore thumb. Or the first chip or crack in a new windshield on your car (which often grows into a lengthy crack). Any nick, scratch, crack or divot on pristine, smooth-finished bone will be impossible to hide. But a jigged surface can hide a lot of other possible flaws in bone, if they're there.

Bone, being a natural material, is inherently variable in it's 'grain' or uniformity. I'm sure that some bone covers will just be 'bad' in one way or another, like a piece of wood, and more prone to checking (cracking/splitting) or chipping. But I doubt the finish has much influence on that, if any. If anything, I'd expect the 'divots' created in jigging bone would actually tend to weaken the piece, rather than make it more durable. I have one knife, a Moki, with beautiful red, jigged covers on it. But the jigging pattern is very dense, with each recess very close to the next, and the 'ridges' dividing them are very thin. On that knife, I've noticed more than once, those thin 'ridges' between the jigging are prone to chipping away. Little pepper-fleck fragments come off of it, nearly every time I handle it.
That makes sense.
The bone on my 77 Harness Jack shows what looks like variation in bone density. It's looking more and more like ivory as it ages. :thumbsup:
CHVaQhz.jpg
 
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