Dyed Some Case Bone

[hornetguy]

I think it's called jigged delrin.

oh.... ok. I just googled "will delrin take dye", and it looks as if it is done using RIT dye in boiling water, it will take dye to some extent.
I knew that many knives have delrin handles that look like chestnut bone (Schrade)... I just wasn't aware of how they did it. I used to do injection molding of delrin, and have worked with machined delrin parts, and it just seemed like it would not be porous enough to take any dye. Live and learn!

 

[Pinemoon]

oh.... ok. I just googled "will delrin take dye", and it looks as if it is done using RIT dye in boiling water, it will take dye to some extent.
I knew that many knives have delrin handles that look like chestnut bone (Schrade)... I just wasn't aware of how they did it. I used to do injection molding of delrin, and have worked with machined delrin parts, and it just seemed like it would not be porous enough to take any dye. Live and learn!

Interesting that you worked with delrin. I'm guessing the dye is typically added during the injection molding process??

 

[Eli Chaps]

Nice job Eli Chaps , it's fun modding stuff

I dyed a Case Amber Bone Tribal Lock back in December as well as a Case Trapper. I used leather dye both times, which you may be interested in. I think it's easier that the water-based dyes. I had no trouble dealing with overage on metal parts. I described the method in a post here:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/tribal-lock-mod.1700744/

I remember that but missed the leather dye part. I'll definitely keep that in mind for potential future projects.

 

[hornetguy]

Interesting that you worked with delrin. I'm guessing the dye is typically added during the injection molding process??

Yes. They work out some ratio of colored delrin pellets to white delrin pellets, and it blends during the "plasticizing" phase of the process.
What was NOT fun was if the delrin got overheated in the barrel of the machine, and we had to purge it out... when it degrades, it creates formaldehyde gas, so that when we purged it out, it was like spraying tear gas... they assured us it was not hazardous at those levels, just irritating....

 

[black mamba]

I recently bought some RIT dye for synthetic fabrics, thinking it may penetrate better on synthetic covers. Haven't tried it yet, but will post results when I do.

 

[Pinemoon]

I remember that but missed the leather dye part. I'll definitely keep that in mind for potential future projects.

I've also thought about wood stain, regular oil-based, and just using mineral spirits on any overage.

.. when it degrades, it creates formaldehyde gas, so that when we purged it out, it was like spraying tear gas... they assured us it was not hazardous at those levels, just irritating....

Yeah- trust us, lol!
I don't care for delrin. It just says "plastic" to me.
The fact that it may release formaldehyde just furthered my opinion.

 

[hornetguy]

The fact that it may release formaldehyde just furthered my opinion.

Well, it only does that when it gets heated way past the melting point, which, IIRC is 350 degrees or more. If your pocket knife is at 350 degrees, I think you have bigger problems than delrin outgassing... especially if it's in your pocket!

 

[hornetguy]

I don't care for delrin. It just says "plastic" to me.

Yep. That's what it is. It IS, however, a pretty tough material that can take a lot of abuse, usually without breaking, cracking, or chipping. Good for working knifes, even though it has little "soul"....

 

[bflying]

They make synthetic bone? I haven't heard of that.. gotta hit the googly button now...

I know, right? That's kind of why I've been conflicted for so long. On the surface, it looks like pretty amazing "Stag Bone" for the price. But since I have most of the series, and multiples of some models, I started to notice some oddities.

First, the jigging is very similar from model to model, and identical between same model samples. Ok, so it's milled bone....maybe. But even milled bone usually have enough natural variations to be very unique. These only tend to be different in very minor color variations. Like milled delrin would look if a few black spots were mixed into light color base.

Overall, still pretty good looking. I mean, I've still got probably over a dozen samples of this model series, and it's kept me wondering for all these years. I think the thing that tripped me, is when the side is tapped on a buffer, it takes on a very high sheen. I've never seen bone do that.

And it didn't take the color very easy. That's why I mentioned basically cooking the entire knife in the simmering mixture.

So actual bone, or plastic? I wouldn't stake my life on it....but leaning towards synthetic in some form.