Case Mini-Copperhead - sometimes a little tinkering makes it all good

Flying Guillotine

Flying Guillotine

Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
1,118
Not too long ago I received a Case mini-copperhead, admittedly purchased due to the great reviews and images from folks on this forum. Unfortunately, the knife was a disappointment: The deep canyon chestnut dye job was a lemon, basically more fleshtone pink with bright red in the deeper sections of jigging. Sadly, it looked like one these fake Halloween scars:
adumbfakecut.jpg


The first instinct was to loudly proclaim "Aaa! Kill it with fire!", but as the disappointment abated, I remembered that there was some liquid RIT dye in the back room. After a bit of work with the dye (RIT liquid orange and dark brown together) going off of a tutorial from somewhere on the forums, it ended up with very pleasant results. Here are a couple of photos from outside today, showing off each side of the renewed mini.

minicopperhead1.jpg


minicopperhead2.jpg


The mini-copperhead has been getting a lot of pocket time lately, it's a very useful little pattern. The new coloration really makes it my own and gives me a little pang of pride. The dye is fully set in and will not rub off or bleed out or anything, and there was no harm to the steel or brass (this one's a stainless steel model).

Glad I could share my labors with you all, since you folks are partially to blame for the initial purchase. Keep this in mind the next time you end up with a good knife with ugly scales.

Thanks for reading through :)
 
Hey FG,
I would like to have seen some before shots but I think the scales look nice now. They are personalized and uniquely yours which IMO is always a good thing in the knife world :thumbup:

Nathan
 
That looks great, FG! Aside from maybe the color, it looks just like factory job. Nice work!
 
That looks really nice! I'm sorry, too, that there are no "before" pictures, but you certainly did your best to provide us with an accurate (and evocative) visual. Heh.

Is this the thread you relied on to dye your knife, or was it another? If the latter, could you retrieve a link to the method you used? The one in this link looks thorough, but you specifically mention RIT liquid dye so I wasn't sure.

Update: I'm thinking "yes," because here you are, with a different knife!

Yes?

... We really do need to establish a "before" module in your methodology.

:-)

Thanks!

~ P.
 
Pertinux: You found the source thread, This one here

The liquid RIT worked great, but needed perhaps a bit more time that is called for in the other thread in which powdered dye is used. I didn't want to get too particular on the modification, since it seems this thread makes the most sense in the traditionals forum, but c'est la vie :D

Thanks for your kind words, everyone.
 
That turned out really nice. The fact that it's my favorite style slipjoint didn't hurt it in any way of course.:D
 
Here's what mine looks like. It is definitely "redder" than the after photos above. I'm not sure how close mine compares to FG's before his dye job.

MiniCopperhead-DeepCanyonBone.jpg


Ed J
 
Thanks for the pic, Ed. Yours looks nice, and IMHO how the copperhead should be. My knife before I did the work was mostly the color of the light far corner next to the pen blade, with a very bright red slash restricted to a narrow-ish line down the center. My theory is that this particular chunk of bone was simply hard to dye, especially considering that I had to stew it in dye for a good deal longer than usual to get results. Maybe it's just extra dense?
 
Oh man I just gave away a gunboat with a bad dye job. Didn't realize that I could fix it myself.

Live and learn....
 
F.G.
Wonderful dye job. Looks a bit like a chestnut bone with a canyon jigging. I really like the way the color turned out.
I've got a sky blue mini-copperhead that is just a bit too baby-blue for me and I'd like it a little darker. After looking at the great success you had darkening your handle slabs I think I might give this trick a shot myself.
Matt
 
Mr Guillotine, thanx to you here is my "new" Sway Back Jack ;)


before:
IMG_1786.jpg





after: ooops...what happened to the graffiti on the blade???




IMG_1947.jpg



Must have gotten some acetone on it :D
 
Good looking knife, sitflyer! Nice job on the blade etch too.

The bone color looks quite different in each pic. Is it just the lighting or did you somehow darken the bone too?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top