Experiment I did with future floor polish as a handle glossing material/sealer.

J

JZknives

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Feb 7, 2013
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I decided to try something I have not seen suggested around here for making handles glossy and "wet" looking. Instead of using CA glue which can give you a headache and is expensive in some places I replaced it with pledge floor polish with "future" shine , also known as future floor polish.

Future is non toxic , acrylic , and easy to use (it even smells nice)

I First took my handles all the way up the rhynowet grits from 600-2500

Here is a picture of a fully sanded knife all the way up to 2500 grit.

pwIaYjIl.jpg



As you can see , the handles are dull looking despite being very nice figured stablized wood.

Next I began to apply the future floor polish. Its tricky to work with because it dries pretty quickly , so you wont be rubbing this back and forth dozens of times or you will get clumpy globs. I went with 2 wipes in the same direction down the handle to make sure there was no debris from the first wipe.

I let this dry for 30 minutes (its usually dry in around 5-10 minutes but I like to be safe) And I begin using green strop paste (0.5 micron) and begin hand buffing the handle with a microfiber cloth. Once the green tint from the paste is gone , i take a CLEAN microfiber cloth and buff again to a shine.

You may or may not want the first coat to include a light abrasive like 2500 grit paper to level out the finish a little bit more. I chose not to do this because the finish is very thin with just one coat.

I then repeat with multiple coats (i went with around 4-5 in this picture) until I feel its thick enough to protect the knife well enough.

Here is what the finish looks like

MV0I04tl.jpg


I wanted to share this with you because I have not seen anybody use future in knifemaking but more importantly wanted some feedback from more experienced makers on how this finish stands up to other ones. I hope some of you more experienced guys will give this a try , future floor polish is very easy to find , but in comes in alot of different names and brands.

So far these are the things I dont know

1. I dont know how it handles up to a buffing wheel
2. I dont know how durable it is with extended use , but it seems durable enough to me .
 
I'll tell you my take on this and most quick finishes that make wood wet and shiny looking......I would not want to use a very sharp too that would be slick or slippery in my hand.

That handle looks uncomfortable to hold and use, BTW. The profile, especially the bolsters, look too square, and those waves are...well....uncomfortable looking.
 
bladsmth said:
I'll tell you my take on this and most quick finishes that make wood wet and shiny looking......I would not want to use a very sharp too that would be slick or slippery in my hand.

That handle looks uncomfortable to hold and use, BTW. The profile, especially the bolsters, look too square, and those waves are...well....uncomfortable looking.
Click to expand...
I just took the knife to the sink to play with it and honestly its no more slippery with the finish than it is with bare stabilzed when wet.
In fact when its dry , the bare stablized wood has LESS grip. I urge you to experiment with it yourself.

As for the "squareness" of the bolsters , i dont understand.

They are not sharp edges if that is what you are saying , they are slightly rounded so not to have irritating edges, but i made them square in the back so the thumb can rest there when you have your finger in the choil .
 
I think it's cool because i was in the floor finishing business for 20+ years.I played around with tough sealers and wax polymers on handles.They are all rated for non slip for obvious reasons.They problem you will find is it scratches up pretty easily.Using your softest new buffing wheel and pink scratchless compound you can carefully buff it and make it tougher,but it will still scuff up and look weird pretty quickly.That's what i found anyway.
 
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