Dark Dyed : Show me your Case Trapper in Red Bone CV made darker

[Wowbagger]

I am wondering if I can make it the way I want it to look.
That's a lot of bright red. I want the CV but I want to tone it down a bunch.

Rit dye ?

Hows it look ?

 

[meako]

I'm out at the mo .will put the link to the pics later..
It works fine.

 

[pmew]

Here's a relatively recent picture of mine. When I bought it, it was almost pink, especially at the bolsters. I brewed some strong tea and poured it into a shot glass when it was luke warm then opened the blades and submerged it to such a level where the cv blades were clear of the liquid but all the bone was under the surface. I left it that way for about an hour then removed it, rinsed it and oiled it. It still kept the red colour, but no more pink at the bolsters where it took the stain and went darker.

 

[Will Power]

I've done tea-dye on Amber Bone and Red, I've even done Stag with it to nice effect. Takes some nerve mind....

The tea must be VERY strong, 3 or 4 bags boiled in a saucepan with a couple of cm depth-just enough to cover the knife. Add a pinch of salt as fixer. DON'T put the knife in and boil it, wait till it's cooled down to c. 80c and off the heat. Lower the knife in carefully, you can rest it on a tea bag and put the others over it in the liquid, this will enhance the process. Leave it there for an hour or more, even overnight, turn it over a couple of times.

BEFORE putting the knife in, clean it with lighter fuel to remove any grease/oil this facilitates the colour process.

Wash off with soap and toothbrush, dry and apply a bit of mineral oil to the slab when dry.

CAUTION the blades and liners go black, even stainless gets darkened, but metal polish will clean it up. There is ALWAYS a risk with this process, you might damage the handles so think about it carefully. I've been OK/lucky and as I say, I've darkened 3 rather anaemic Stag knives very nicely, but Stag being porous looks awful when you first remove it. Dry the knives slowly don't use excessive heat like a hairdryer, this could wreck the slabs. Patience is certainly a virtue.

Thanks, Will

 

[pmew]

I didn't add salt to mine, I was happy enough with the initial taste

 

[zolthar]

I dyed my mini trapper with coffee and black tea. On the pictures below you can see that is was lighter than the medium stockman before the dye and afterwards it's considerably darker.

Before:

After:

 

[Wowbagger]

That's cool guys !
Just tea and coffee.
Looks good.
I am leery. I heard that you could make a shirt a nice tan color rather than stark white with tea. I tried it.
Danged if every bit of the color washed out. If I had spilled the same tea on the shirt while drinking it I know what would have happened. Permanent stain.
Hahaha

Maybe I didn't fix it with anything; salt or vinegar or some such. I was young.

Thanks for the help !

Anyone else . . . I am still interested in experience with dye. I want to see what happens when going much darker with just a hint of red showing here and there.

 

[meako]

I didn't add salt to mine, I was happy enough with the initial taste

aye laddie-salt goes in ye porridge.

 

[jc57]

Here we go - some of my experiments with dyeing bone. RIT Dye, simmering on stovetop. WARNING: Every time I have dyed a knife with CV steel blades, the blades developed a few small pits during the process. I personally will only do it with stainless steel knives from here on out.

So, first, SS Medium Jack in Sunset Winterbottom Bone - was just too much "Circus Tent" and not as much "Sunset" as I was hoping for, so I decided to try for a reddish chestnut. This actually took two tries to get it right. First time I went with a 50-50 mix of RIT Scarlet and RIT Cocoa Brown liquid dyes. Second time I went with a 2:1 Cocoa to Scarlet ratio. So about 15 minutes each time, rinsed and dried between attempts, but on the same day.

Before:



After:



Since the blades were SS, some metal polish after I was done on the blades and backsprings took care of all of the temporary staining. The dye has held up fine. The knife looks the same today as it did when I dyed it in 2013. Note that the darker valleys in the Winterbottom were touched up with a black sharpie (which is also permanent) to get the look that the knife was supposed to have originally. It doesn't wipe off, it absorbs into the bone as well.

This isn't a before and after comparison, but it is two different knives - a 6344 in Red Bone CV and a 63087 in Red Bone CV. Both were about the same color. I dyed the 63087 with a combo of scarlet and a little cocoa brown (colors of RIT dye) to darken it up a little bit. I didn't give it as long in the dye bath. Remember what I said about CV developing pits? This is one of the ones that taught me that lesson.

So - 6344, never dyed (full sunlight - it's not quite this bright cherry red in most light):


63087 dyed for about 10 minutes (cloudy day photo):


You can avoid the pitting issue by opening the blades and keeping them out of the dye - which is easier if you have a single-ended pattern where you can create sort of a jig to suspend it vertically, though you would need more dye and a bigger pot.

 

[JSCHENK]

Andaline dyes, no salt water. For reference the top two were lighter than the humpback when they started. Humpback is original

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[meako]

This was amber bone .I used cherry red RIT dye-
You can see the extent of the pitting and staining from the salty dye.
Nothing too awful and with use they will fade.

 

[deltaboy]

Cool jobs.

 

[ISKRA]

I'm just brewing a strong tea mix, I'll try to give my peanut a more "individualised" look. Hopefully it goes well, I'll post a photo later on (if I'm happy with the result).

 

[jec88]

I experimented on one by rubbing cranberry juice on the sides with a q-tip and letting it soak in and sit. It turned out really good and dark, but I didn't take any before pictures. I plan on trying it again and taking some before pictures so I can see just how much darker it turned. It might be worth a try. I figure cranberries have alot of acid in them to react with the dye.

 

[boy&hisdogs]

I figure cranberries have alot of acid in them to react with the dye.

So does wine, if red + acidic is what does the trick here.

 

[ISKRA]

Well, my experiment was pretty much a failure. It didn't do much, except that the bone is less shinyer now. :grumpy: I can't notice any signifficant colour change. Luckily it didn't do any damage though.