EDC XIII Which knife or knives are you carrying today?

This morning I put away yesterday's somewhat oddball carry in the bottom drawer of one of my knife boxes that houses some of my more modest pieces and a couple beaters. I grabbed this Kizer Vanguard Series Intrepid from there as we were planning to continue our work on rejuvenating our sluggish leach field. This knife also has some association with my youngest son as I bought mine soon after he had picked up the same model for himself

It's been a long time since I carried this and was quite surprised to find its black G10 handles were riddled throughout with what looked like a chalky gray blotchiness. I shot this pic after finishing our work for the day, and you can see that unpleasant appearance here.

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I wiped the handles down after to no positive effect, then hit them with Dawn, warm water, and a medium brush which made them uniformly ashy gray and hideous. A quick search led me to an old, short thread here at BF that suggested using mineral oil or WD40 (itself a mixture of naphtha, a light mineral oil, and surfactant) as a remedy. knarfeng knarfeng 's post mentioned epoxy surface degradation from UV or micro-scratches with the resultant surface porosity appearing as white blotches. I sprayed some WD on a paper towel, rubbed it in, then kept rubbing with a clean, dry rag to get rid of the oiliness. The G10 looks and feels fine now, through Frank said the treatment needs repeating as the oil wears away from use.

Again, this is a somewhat unusual carry for me, as I never got into the whole, Kizer, Reate, WE thing, but this is a very decent, older model knife for such a modest offering--nice hollow ground VG-10 with harpoon swedge, good flipper, skeletonized liners, centered, open back construction, clean F&F, and a functional clip.

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Good designer, too... ;)

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Same as usual.

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ChazzyP said:
quite surprised to find its black G10 handles were riddled throughout with what looked like a chalky gray blotchiness. I shot this pic after finishing our work for the day, and you can see that unpleasant appearance here... I wiped the handles down after to no positive effect, then hit them with Dawn, warm water, and a medium brush which made them uniformly ashy gray and hideous. A quick search led me to an old, short thread here at BF that suggested using mineral oil or WD40 (itself a mixture of naphtha, a light mineral oil, and surfactant) as a remedy. knarfeng knarfeng 's post mentioned epoxy surface degradation from UV or micro-scratches with the resultant surface porosity appearing as white blotches. I sprayed some WD on a paper towel, rubbed it in, then kept rubbing with a clean, dry rag to get rid of the oiliness. The G10 looks and feels fine now, through Frank said the treatment needs repeating as the oil wears away from use....
Click to expand...

Have you ever thoroughly cleaned G-10 or Micarta with concentrated alcohol? You can see the full version of that effect and it looks terrible.

It can be immediately restored with the non-toxic mineral oil sold at your local pharmacy. (Please do not use WD40. While many people will defend it in this and other roles, and it is far from the most toxic thing most people have in their garage, it still isn't good for your health.) Texture matters with application methods but always use as little as will work as excess can build up an uncomfortable residue.

Smoother textures lend themselves very well to a light Q-tip dotting of oil distributed via vigorous rubbing with a cotton ball. (The heat of friction helps.) If you do end up with residue build-up from mineral oil, I've found that a small amount of standard-proof vodka on a cloth or cotton ball can be "just right" for balancing it.
 
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