Custom Dyed GEC’s by Nathan & Travis

Travman

Travman

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Jan 26, 2016
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I’m so happy with the dye job on these two GEC’s. I have always loved deep red dyed bone on a pocket knife. However, many red bone GEC’s tend to lean towards pink. I have tried dyeing knives in the past, but was always discouraged by the corrosive action of dyes like RIT. These two knives were dyed by my Bro-in-law. He uses an industrial lacquer based dye that is non-corrosive and does an excellent job of penetrating deeply and not leaching out. I’m excited because I have often turned down red GEC’s because of the white to pink edges around the bolsters. We should be able to fix that issue without harming the knife and getting corrosive salt into the bone and liners.
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So if anyone has reddish-pink or light colored GEC’s that they want to dye, let me know. We might be able to help you out.
 
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looks great! i was wondering if he had done something to it the other when I saw it posted. Thought it might have been some SFA I had missed that year. and the insides of the blade well were preserved?
 
mrknife said:
looks great! i was wondering if he had done something to it the other when I saw it posted. Thought it might have been some SFA I had missed that year. and the insides of the blade well were preserved?
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The 06 Pemberton was a simple white bone version. The 14 was a Gunstock Jack SFO which had very light and patchy Smooth Autumn Gold bone color. It was so light in color that you can not tell that is was ever another color besides red.
 
Those are beautiful! Red is my favorite color bone but like you said they never seem to come out dark enough, great job. I want that 14!
What is the brand name of the dye? (If you don't mind me asking)
 
These look great!

My biggest issue with a lot of DIY dye jobs I see is not just that they look light colored but they look light colored because they're very thin and surface layer which also makes them look like it's just an accidental stain rather than the bone is that color.

Yours on the other hand look like a nice deep solid red with some subtle character from the bone.

I've only done one dye job myself, with RIT, which actually came out great but I think it was also an easy one because I was dyeing nearly-white bone to yellow. My covers warped like crazy though but they went right back to factory fit after they fully dried, thankfully.
 
TOM K. said:
Those are beautiful! Red is my favorite color bone but like you said they never seem to come out dark enough, great job. I want that 14!
What is the brand name of the dye? (If you don't mind me asking)
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I’ll have to check. My brother-in-law, Nate, was a finisher for company that did high end staircases, furniture, and entryways for big corporate offices. I’m pretty sure what he has been using is not available commercially.
 
Heathenhymnal said:
These look great!

My biggest issue with a lot of DIY dye jobs I see is not just that they look light colored but they look light colored because they're very thin and surface layer which also makes them look like it's just an accidental stain rather than the bone is that color.

Yours on the other hand look like a nice deep solid red with some subtle character from the bone.

I've only done one dye job myself, with RIT, which actually came out great but I think it was also an easy one because I was dyeing nearly-white bone to yellow. My covers warped like crazy though but they went right back to factory fit after they fully dried, thankfully.
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Yes, that is exactly the issues I have had with RIT dye. I would add that RIT dye is corrosive because it is salty and it does cause immediate patina and possible pitting.
 
Travman said:
I’ll have to check. My brother-in-law, Nate, was a finisher for company that did high end staircases, furniture, and entryways for big corporate offices. I’m pretty sure what he has been using is not available commercially.
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i figured it was something not RIT, ive seen the RIT jobs that people have attempted.
 
Very nice dye job. I dyed a red #13 Speaker Jack with RIT dye several years back, but went for a dark brown rather than sticking with red. The dye job turned out ok (ended up very dark), but it did have some adverse affects on the spring and blade (and I thought I’d done a good job keeping the blade out of the dye).

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Travman said:
Yes, that is exactly the issues I have had with RIT dye. I would add that RIT dye is corrosive because it is salty and it does cause immediate patina and possible pitting.
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Definitely good to know! Mine was on a stainless Case so didn't have any issue but I can see that being a problem on a carbon knife, especially making sure you get it all out of the pivot area after.
 
JTB_5 said:
Really beautiful, Travis—your brother in law has the good stuff!
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Thanks. Nate thinks he has the same type of dye that GEC uses. We showed our red dyed Pemberton to Bill Howard this past GEC Rendezvous. We were hoping Bill would open up and talk a little about his dyeing process and the dyes they use. However, he was tight lipped and didn’t say anything.
 
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