Don't get it wet! Boker bleeding dye?

Ice Tigre

Ice Tigre

Joined
Dec 17, 2004
Messages
1,212
Hiya folks,

Got me a new Boker Tree Brand red bone trapper recently... Had it out working today, 3rd or 4th day so far. Great little EDC... Reminded me how much i like trappers..

Anyway, rinsed the blades off in warm water before heading to dinner, and got a scale a little damp... Then later noticed pink on my fingers. :eek: Went back and checked the knife, ran some warm water right on the scales.. It ran red/pink for a half minute or so, and tinged pink for a couple minutes after.

Honestly I do not expect this from any knife, and especially not from a well known, German brand with the good reputation that Boker has. Some folks have reported that Rough Riders do this quite a lot, although personally I have never had a RR do it. $10 RR bleeds? Ok... $30 Boker bleeds? Hmm. Not exactly great.

I dunked and rinsed, blotted, and buffed it 4 or 5 times in good hot water--- (I've found that with washing any folder, the hotter the water is the faster it dries and you don't have to worry about moisture staying/rust forming)--- It finally stopped giving off color in all but one spot; The edge of the back scale, along the spine, the last 1/2" or so from the bolster. You have to press and rub rather hard, along the corner of the bone, and it will give a fine red line like a pencil line to a white cloth.

The overall color of the knife is a little brighter now, but just a few %... If i had not seen the lightening happen, I doubt that I would notice much difference-- I see it now because I am sensitive to it..

I am sure it is fine now, Normal holding, handling and cutting should be fine, unless my hand gets extremely sweaty or wet, but even then I doubt it will do it much anymore...

I will continue to use the knife without fear of pink hands now, but boy thats an odd occurance.. As a side note, the dye comes off of the hands easily, 95% gone after a scrub with Ivory hand soap, just leaving a thin tinge to one finger. Obviously, I will not condemn Boker outright on one color bleeding knife, and will get a second one, to see what happens...Otherwise its a great solid knife-good build, great steel so far, so this really surprised me.

What do you guys think? a fluke/one off? Did this one simple missed a rinse and seal stage of assemble, or has anyone heard of or seen them do this before?

G.
(My full review of this trapper is on my site in my sig, if anyone's interested... didn't think it relavent to post all of it here though.. :cool:)
 
I have had this happen with Boker Red Picked Bone.

It happened when I was using a generic petrulum distilate penetrating oil to oil the joints.
I wiped more oil on the bone and let it sit, them wiped it off.
I did this a couple of times over a period of a couple of days.

Now I use edible Baby oil and it does not happen to any of my new Bokers.
 
It happens. Bone dyes are not always colorfast. Particularly when thinners/solvent make contact. Generally, it should stabilize once the excess dye leaches out.
 
shecky said:
Generally, it should stabilize once the excess dye leaches out.
Click to expand...

That was my first thought as well, that there was some excess dye in there that needed to be worked out. Glad it didn't effect the overall look of your knife though!

:D
 
shecky said:
It happens. Bone dyes are not always colorfast. Particularly when thinners/solvent make contact. Generally, it should stabilize once the excess dye leaches out.
Click to expand...

Ice T,

This is correct. I've had way more expensive knives do this as well. Not to long ago a $85.00 Schatt and Morgan English Jack had the same problem. It eventually stopped running and the color was just ever so slightly lighter than it once was is all. No big deal.

Anthony
 
I've had the same thing happen with both SM and Case. The extra dye (which had dried on the surface but not soaked into the bone) came off when I used TuffGlide on the pivots. With the surface dye gone, the handle does polish up more, giving a higher gloss. For what it's worth reddish dyes (this can include many browns) are notoriously unstable--think of the new red t-shirt in the wash with a white dress shirt. I have not had the same degree of trouble with any of my greenish bone handles (Case, GEC, etc).
 
berzerker said:
For what it's worth reddish dyes (this can include many browns) are notoriously unstable
Click to expand...

Well, that certainly explains some of my wife's behavior laterly ;)

Seriously, I'm glad this topic came up. I've had it happen on one or two knives and had wondered about it, but it never occurred to me to ask about it. Now I know everything is okay.

Thanks to the OP for asking and for the folks who took the time to respond.
 
Ah, Thank you! Ok, I won't worry about it then... it just seemed odd, since i'd not heard of it happening much. Red dyes being worse does make sense, since come to think of it, anything else that tends to run/bleed -like yo say, clothes- tend to be red... Interesting.

:)

G.
 
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