How Do You Care For Your Custom Shop Wood Handles ?

Azula Gun Holsters

Azula Gun Holsters

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Sep 19, 2016
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How do you care for the wooden scales on your custom shop knife ?
Linseed oil ? or ??

Just got in a beautiful INFI Ratmandu custom shop with wood scales.

Thanks
 
Linseed oil is generally used to treat the wood when it is made. For general care, I have had good success with microcrystalline wax such as renwax. However, any paste wax would also do the job. If the wood is used in the kitchen often and gets dried out from soap or anything like that, a light wipe down with mineral oil would do the trick. Congrats on your RMD!
 
I've been curious about this too. I recently got a wood handled CS MSE and was goingto nake it my go to hunting knife but was wondering if getting blood on the scales was going to be a problem and if I'd be best off finding one with G10 or Micarta.
 
Post pics of your RMD! Are the scales not stabilized?

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It will be a non-issue with stabilized woods.

With hard, oily woods such as ironwood that do not benefit from stabilization, I would expect washing with a bleach solution to be sufficient for sanitation. I would follow that up with a thick coat of mineral oil and some light buffing.

I have a cutting board in walnut that is routinely washed with soap and water, followed by buffing with salt and vinegar, and periodically washed with bleach. After drying and oiling it retains its natural color.

I would avoid isopropyl alcohol on non-stabilized oily woods, or those treated with polyurethane.

In general, the woods do not need much special care. I would avoid excessive oiling on these materials, as well as on mammoth ivory or bone, due to concerns of swelling.

The wood on your CS MSE is dyed and stabilized and should behave much like any other phenolic.
 
Unless you have a sweet ironwood RMD, virtually all other wood handles Busse produces are stabilized. Basically these stabilized woods are now a plastic, so really no need to do anything to them.
 
Thanks for the replies. Would appreciate any info on the wood.
Here is the knife.

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Panthera tigris said:
....The wood on your CS MSE is dyed and stabilized and should behave much like any other phenolic.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm not an aficionado of wood but the grain is kind of stringy and porous like oak. It does look like those capillaries might be full of black acrylic but it's kind of hard to tell for sure because when I drag a fingernail across them you can still feel them. On my stabilized wood duck calls you can't feel that, but I dont have any oak duck calls. Come duck season I'm going to use the heck out of it and see what happens.
 
I use Dr Stringfellow's LEM-OIL. It's a guitar fretboard conditioner and works great on the wooden knife handles I have.
 
I used to own the only other one I've seen exactly like this... Sweet knife. I remember the scales being some kind of maple
 
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