Wood Treatment For Khuks New From Nepal

The hardest handles to clean up and treat IMO are the carved ones, esp. the carved horn ones. I swear by a simple spray of Ballistol, and thank Yvsa for turning me onto it on this forum 18 months ago.

I orderd a can of the liquid and the spray, but practically only use the spray. It has mineral oil in it, as well as a bunch of other stuff. It shines up the handle and is super fast to apply.

Maybe we could keep Yangdu in a few cans, and she could just shoot the handles prior to shipping?

As Dan says, they really need to start the process in Nepal, but this would be good insurance for the shipments out of Reno.

We would just need to warn her in advance about the unique smell... (-: It still bugs my family, but I have grown to really like it.

Norm
 
A few coats of linseed oil would be less likely to interfere with adhesion of other finishes.

Something like Watco contains linseed oil, some varnish and mineral spirits. It is easy to apply other finishes aftewards, as with plain boiled linseed oil.

I like the natural look of Watco on villager models, but it depends on the blade.

If Ballistol smells funny, it would not be good for sales, or for hiding new knives from the spouse....or for adding a finish later.
 
I don't know what the volume of khuks arriving from Nepal would be, but I'd imaging Yangdu would like something she could just dunk-and-wipe, or wipe with a saturated cloth.

She's trying to reduce the number of "seconds."

What would be fastest/easier/least flamable?
 
Boiled linseed oil, please, not raw. Raw will practically speaking, never dry. Boiled will soak in, but will dry. You can then top-coat it with whatever you wish.

I'd argue against mineral oil precisely because it isn't a "drying oil," so it has the potential to muck up any number of finishes that folks might otherwise want to put on their pieces.

FWIW, my knife handles (and pretty much anything else wooden) gets a wipedown with "boat slush," What the old-time fishermen used on their wooden gear. It's a 50/50 mixture of boiled linseed and turps, with an indeterminate amount of beeswax melted in, and topped off with a dash of pine tar. Apply it hot, and wipe off any damp residue after an hour. Repeat once/day for a week, once/week for a month, once/month for a year, and once/year 'till you're dead :D

T.
 
How about we ask Yangdu to ask the kamis to come up with a better solution to the handle cracking problem on their end? Have them come up with 2 or 3 ideas and send "sample khukuris" so we can see the difference here?
 
I don't know about the 'sample' khuk stuff, but it is entirely correct the Kamis have a job to do on their end.

Dan, Question: can properly cured wood be recognized by the buyer? Is is possible to have partially cured, or improperly cured wood sold as 'cured' without the buyer being able to tell?

And for Reno, the question is still which treatment would protect the wood handle to at least some degree and give the customer more finish options later.

It is my impression from reading this thread that enough people are cautions about mineral oil to remove it from the list, and boiled linseed or Watco's danish finishing oil are on the list.

When and if I hear from the refinish experts I'll pass along to you all what they say.


munk
 
forgot to mention earlier....but cost is a big consideration. whatever is suggested, needs to account for what is available in Nepal. I'm sure Pala does not want to be lugging a 300 pound jug of watco back to Nepal...

I honestly do not know what all they have available there. All I do know is that they have mineral oil.


I'm not sure how to answer your question, munk. An average Joe could measure the moisture content with a simple tool of low cost found at the hardware store...but not everybody has one (or needs one). The "real deal" for getting an accurate moisture percentage is a very expensive contraption.

If it's a question of whether or not we could tell if the wood being sent was being cured properly....well, the hope is that the cracking problems would simply go away, and that would be enough proof.
 
Huh? OK.
from Nepal:

1) getting properly cured wood in the first place
) treating or not treating that wood with additional stuff

From Reno:

1) applying a once over coat of somthing that will work, allow customers later to do what they want with the wood, and be something Yangdu doens't have to keep monkeying around with.

>>>


munk
 
What Andrew said a few posts back about the beeswax and turpentine might be a good thing but methinks the beeswax would forbid any other type finishes being rubbed on later.

But the turpentine itself may be a good idea if it's available in Nepal. I hadn't thought about turpentine because it isn't used as much as it once was by the common folk. Eveybody used to have a bottle of turpentine for all kinds of ailments. And turpentine is a natural wood substance or used to be. Turpentine was once a major crop in Florida from what everyone I knew called the Turpentine Pine trees.
There were acres and acres of the turpentine pines with large presicion gashes running down the trunk where the buckets were placed to collect the running sap much like the folks collect the sap from the maples to make maple syrup.
I haven't used turpentine for many years but it sure may be worth a try.

The bottom line is that mineral oil is cheap, plentiful, and easy to find and something that meets those requirements is what HI must have.
I know that several people have issues with it might not being compatible with further finishes but a good scrubbing with Murphy's Oil Soap or Mineral Spirits will remove the traces of the mineral oil and negate everybody's concern about it.
What if all our khukuri's handles came with Lignum Vitae or other similarly extremely oily wood?
You'd still have to use some kind of drying agent on it in order to put on a different oil finish of some sort.
 
Shellac is worth considering. It does not resist water, but does resist moisture transfer and forms a good sealer. It can be topcoated with varnish, or sanded and removed if you want to use an oil finish.

Shellac is cheap and is thinned with alcohol. It is nontoxic, and only suffers from a short shelf life....but it is good stuff under most varnishes if you use the kind that has been dewaxed.

It is easy to apply with a brush.

I would still recommend a couple of coats of Watco.
 
The main reason, I've heard, that turpentine isn't used much anymore, is that it is fairly toxic. The once-omnipresent substance is now a health hazard if I understand correctly. Mineral spirits is now the solvent of choice to replace it.

Probably the most "reversible" coating would be shellac. The problem is that several coats are required to build a decent film thickness.

Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn't really need solving, I wonder?:confused:
 
Just how bad is the cracking problem with the wood handles?

The only things I've seen a lot as blems are the Chandan handles... Was this a big problem with other woods previously? Or is there a new batch of cracked handles?

Mineral oil on Neem (especially) and Kapur seem to darken the wood. On Chandan there doesn't seem to be that much of a difference before and after in the appearance.
 
I'll bet the Chandan is what probably started the chain of event that led to this thread.

It's not used much anyway. Most HI handles are Peachy Keeno.



munk
 
At one time Uncle Bill said that there would be no more Chandan handles because it cracked too bad.
And now we have them again and they are cracking, same old story, different chapter. Maybe Miss Yangdu needs to say no more Chandan handles?
I think it's pretty but my favorite was the Rosewood we got when I first started buying khuks in '99, Saatisal is my second choice.:thumbup:
 
Yangdu has indeed sent word to halt chandan purchasing until a good supply is found. That's why we had mostly walnut on the last FF run. Still some pieces sitting around, so that's why they show up on the deals...


Horn has been cracking for years....not wood exactly....but cracks nonetheless.
 
The chandan confuses me sometimes. I've had it arrive in perfect condition and I've had it arrive cracked, but I've never had good chandan crack later, even after only minimal maintenance.

Every chandan handle that arrived in good condition was so oily it could almost be called greasy. In particular, my tarwar and CR were so oily that it took Tru-Oil several days to dry on each of the first few coats. (Once a good surface was built it up began drying much more quickly.) Linseed and such wouldn't even penetrate.

My 18" Salyan was a blem with handle cracks. The handle was dry to the touch and soaked up oil like a sponge. (Once the wood had soaked for a day or two the cracks closed right up.)

Do any of the old hands have any thoughts on chandan? Simply perusing the DOTD's over the last year demonstrates to me that there's a problem with it cracking and I can only imagine how much this is costing Yangdu. Why exactly does it crack more than the other woods? Does it have something to do with how oily it is?
 
no - actually, the chandan arrives at the shop quite wet.



I should add that I think wax would be great, and so would shellac - as would a number of finishes. However, I'm not sure any of these are available to the kamis, or that they know how to use them (or would even be willing to use them - or could afford them....)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top