Best way to clean this knife

You have outgassing celluloid covers on that knife. :(
(The corrosion on the blades, pins, bolsters, and shield, and the cover is shrunken, indicates outgassing)
Therefore, the first thing to do is remove the covers.

Dampen a rag with mineral oil, rub the active red rust on the blades until it stops showing up on the rag.
Use mineral oil on the boaters, to clean them up, as well.

I'd lightly use a 320 - 400 grit wet or dry sand paper to knock down the corrosion behind the covers.

Next, contact someone like @glennbad to see about having new covers put on.
Glenn is one of the best, if not the best for that. :D
 
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I've had a couple of celluloid knives do this. One of them went from slightly manky to a decayed mess over the course of only two weeks after I discovered the first signs of trouble.

It's been said before, but keep that knife away from the rest of your collection, or any metal objects you care about for that matter.
 
There's not really any "saving" a celluloid handled knife once this starts the outgassing process. The only option is to get those handles off of it. Then you clean up the knife, and put different handles back onto it.
 
Time for a trip to the hardware store! And they are in separate boxes right now. I'll separate them further. Thanks for the advice. If anyone else has some ideas, feel free to let me know. Thank you.
 
Gaither Stephens said:
Time for a trip to the hardware store! And they are in separate boxes right now. I'll separate them further. Thanks for the advice. If anyone else has some ideas, feel free to let me know. Thank you.
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Keep the knives with celluloid covers away from your other knives and away from each other. But my advice is the same as the advice that I gave in your prior topic. Just sell your knives as is. Any experienced knife enthusiast will recognize whatever you've done. At best, he won't care that you messed with it. You won't have improved it in the eyes of an experienced collector. At worst, you will have diminished the knife for the buyer...possibly even ruined it. Fluff and buffers try to shine up rusty knives and pass them off to novice buyers as "new" or "mint" on Ebay. Experienced collectors won't be fooled. Let the buyer make the call on what to do with it.
 
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Gaither Stephens said:
Time for a trip to the hardware store! And they are in separate boxes right now. I'll separate them further. Thanks for the advice. If anyone else has some ideas, feel free to let me know. Thank you.
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As others have said, once celluloid decomposition starts, it cannot be stopped. Decomposing celluloid releases nitric acid. The acid will destroy the rest of the knife. Remove the celluloid as soon as possible.
 
supratentorial said:
... At worst, you will have diminished the knife for the buyer...possibly even ruined it.
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Better to "ruin it" by taking off the celluloid and replacing the covers than letting the celluloid destroy the knife any further.

If he sells the knife, he can give the reason the covers were replaced in the description, and show a "before" picture as proof.
He can also have whoever replaces them mark the inside of the liners showing the covers were replaced, and the year, for prosperity.

Or, this might be one he decides to keep.

I don't think this is a rare highly sought after "collectable" knife, so preserving the knife is not going to "detract" from the value.
Besides, how many collectors buy a knife they know has outgassing celluloid?
My best guess is "very few to none".
 
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I also have an early F.R. that had celluloid covers and got stuck in the bottom of a bag. What a mess. I sent it to Glennbad and he's working on it now. He has a wait time but he is one of the best at fixing up these oldies.--KV
 
afishhunter said:
Better to "ruin it" by taking off the celluloid and replacing the covers than letting the celluloid destroy the knife any further.

If he sells the knife, he can give the reason the covers were replaced in the description, and show a "before" picture as proof.
He can also have whoever replaces them mark the inside of the liners showing the covers were replaced, and the year, for prosperity.

Or, this might be one he decides to keep.

I don't think this is a rare highly sought after "collectable" knife, so preserving the knife is not going to "detract" from the value.
Besides, how many collectors buy a knife they know has outgassing celluloid?
My best guess is "very few to none".
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If he's keeping it, he can do whatever he wants with it. Since he previously posted for advice on whether to clean 200 knives that he's selling, I assumed that he may be selling it... if he can find a buyer for it. My assumption may be wrong.

I gave the advice that based on my experience will give the best outcome. Have you sold any knives with the handles removed? In my experience it is even more difficult than the already difficult task of selling a knife with damage from outgassing celluloid. The buyer best knows what he wants to do with it. Let him decide.
 
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Nope. I've never sold a knife.
I've given them away many times, and traded a couple of times, but never sold any.

Any collector is likely to pass on a knife with outgassing celluloid covers or handles if s/he is aware of the outgassing.
S/He knows those outgassing covers will need to be dealt with immediately, if the knife is obtained, or risk damaging the rest of the collection.

IMHO (which along with $19.95 might get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks) the outgassing covers removes this particular knife from the "collectable" category (if it was ever in that category) to the "user" category.
 
I do plan on selling these. Any of them that have this type of damage I'll separate out into separate baggies (to keep from causing any harm to the other knives) and sell them 'as-is' if I can find interested parties.

I'll be honest, I work to help house homeless people. I don't have the time or money necessary to restore these knives to their deserved glory. Hopefully, someone else will be able to take on the task.

My initial post was to find out if there was anything I could do short-term to give them some tender loving care, but it seems my best course of action would be to just sell them like they are and that way, whoever buys them can decide for themselves the best course of action they can take.

I appreciate everyone helping me decide on the best course of action to take with this blades.
 
Ok here goes, please excuse an intrusion on someone else's post. I'm curious,as I've never heard of this before myself until this thread. Would submerging a knife that's gassing in oil prevent the damage to the metal parts. I know it won't halt the decay of the celluloid, but would it prevent the corrosion by being in a oxygen free environment? I.E. prevent any more damage until knife can be sold/repaired.?
 
Misplaced Hillbilly said:
Ok here goes, please excuse an intrusion on someone else's post. I'm curious,as I've never heard of this before myself until this thread. Would submerging a knife that's gassing in oil prevent the damage to the metal parts. I know it won't halt the decay of the celluloid, but would it prevent the corrosion by being in a oxygen free environment? I.E. prevent any more damage until knife can be sold/repaired.?
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If you're familiar with old movies, you've undoubtedly heard about movies being lost because of the decay of the old celluloid film stock, sometimes called flammable stock. Film preservationists will open a film can and find only a pile of rusty dust. This decomposition also happens to celluloid knife scales, vanity sets, and the zillions of celluloid products made before the 1950s.

I don't remember all the details, but celluloid has several failure modes. Heat and light will degrade celluloid, but it will also degrade just from chemical decomposition. Celluloid can be stable for decades, then go into decay without warning. Once decomposition starts, it can not be stopped. The decomposition does not require air to happen. The only thing to do is to remove the celluloid from the knife as soon as you see deterioration. I don't know enough chemistry to give a definitive answer, but storing a chemically decomposing material in oil sounds like a really bad idea.

The acid fumes given off from decomposing celluloid will also rust steel and will even pit stainless steel. I've got a once nice Western Barlow that has bad rust and pitting from lying next to a decomposing celluloid pen knife. The celluloid knife is long gone, but I keep the Barlow as a reminder to never buy more celluloid.

If you check the Resources bar on the home page here there's a link entitled "The Care and Feeding of Celluloid". Open the PDF, and you'll find a detailed article on the subject. It's very long, and not knife-specific, but it does make interesting reading.
 
Thank you I appreciate the info, I personally would remove the scales asap if it were mine. Even if the knife was some super rare valuable thing, if the scales turn it into dust it wouldn't be worth anything anyways. I was more concerned with the original poster having said he was just planning selling as is, which means it will only get worse.Just trying to think of a way to buy him some time until he finds a buyer.
 
just got a call back from my friend who works for the Smithsonian doing restoration. He said to get a glass jar and fill it with motor oil. To store the knives with celluloid in the motor oil, which has additives that will absorb and neutralize the outgassing from the celluloid. With time, the celluloid will still crack, but the oil will keep the metal from corroding and rusting. I'm not sure that I want to go to all that trouble. Found this on rimfirecentral.com after Google "celluloid in oil" Hopefully this helps
 
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