Is This Acceptable ?

sorry Les, for some reason i thought your home was in Arizona.
it takes awhile and a few purchases for a new collector to learn what are reasonable expectations for custom knives at various price points.
thanks for the replies here. what might seem obvious to those with experience, is still news to a newbie. roland
 
i mailed this knife back to Les 6 days after posting here. while wrapping it, i noticed multiple cracks around 2 of the handle pins which were not there previously. my home is about 58 degrees F., rel. humidity 60 - 70%, no heat source or sunlight near knife.
so explanation is stabilization of wood did not "take". amazing to me how quicly the splits are occuring, but others here also reported a similar experience. roland
 
It's in the Dealers Best interest to have Happy Customers.Les has ALWAYS Done Right By Me.
Buddy S.:cool::thumbup:
 
to clarify: my intentions in posting had nothing to do with Les Robertson.
i did not doubt that he would treat me as fairly after i had paid as before.
i wanted to learn (and did thanks to the replies) what standards "real" collectors apply to their knives. i also learned 1st hand that even after stabilization, wood handles can develop cracks at an alarming rate.
Les, never hestitated in replying "return the knife for a refund". roland
 
Steven, why is my environment a "major problem". the relative humidity in my house right now is 65%. i would say ideal for knife storage; not dry, not damp. please explain. roland
 
thanks Steven, but i disagree with you about effects of 60 - 70% rel. humidity. i have many knives stored here for 30 years(stag, wood, bone, horn) as well as a 24 piece collection of ivories, all 100 years or older.
until now, never had a problem. 70% is NOT damp, 90 to 100% is damp.
i think the humidity at Les' in Georgia is higher than here.
also problem is shrinkage as evidenced by prominence of handle pins.
exessive humidty if it were to have an effect, would cause swelling.
however the purpose of stabilization is to prevent any changes. roland
 
rprocter said:
thanks Steven, but i disagree with you about effects of 60 - 70% rel. humidity. i have many knives stored here for 30 years(stag, wood, bone, horn) as well as a 24 piece collection of ivories, all 100 years or older.
until now, never had a problem. 70% is NOT damp, 90 to 100% is damp.
i think the humidity at Les' in Georgia is higher than here.
also problem is shrinkage as evidenced by prominence of handle pins.
exessive humidty if it were to have an effect, would cause swelling.
however the purpose of stabilization is to prevent any changes. roland
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I agree with the bolded above, however I believe STeven is blaming the drastic difference in Australia's humidity and yours and the relative short time period for adjustment between the two for the cracks. I may be wrong.
 
thanks Kevin, but the knife spent at least a few weeks in Georgia before coming here, so one might suspect the Australia to Georgia change was the major one, but Les tells me no cracks when he shipped to me.
had stabilization worked, even sudden dramatic changes in temperature and humidity, should not have any affect. roland
 
STeven, Kevin, Roland, Buddy, Roger and John,

Thank you for your support. For whatever reason the wood split. That is how it goes with some natural handle material.

I will be giving the knife to Shawn at the Blade Show (along with a block of Desert Ironwood) to have the knife re-handled.

It does appear that the environment where Roland lives played a part in this. Not his fault.

STeven, as always excellent analysis. You are correct where Shawn lives it is a relatively low humidity.

Thanks again to all who replied.
 
for scientific accuracy i cannot let the above post go unanswered. the shrinkage has NOTHING to do with the environment in my home or where i live.
the wood handle is shrinking. the mechanism is loss of intracellular water.
therefore the piece of wood used to make the handle had not adequately dried before being used. it did not taken on moisture after being made and then subsequently dry or the handle pins would not be protruding.
air drying of wood is a slow process (6 to 12 months(or more)to air dry locally cut lumber).
no changes will become apparent until a certain threshold amount of water has been lost, such that the forces of shrinkage are enough to overcome the forces binding the wood fibers together, at which point splitting (or checking) begins to occur.
i do not know how long ago this knife was made, but i believe it has been drying out ever since and the occurrence of splitting(checking) is a function of TIME as well relative humidity and temperature of it's environment, which establishes the gradient.
the environment during the 9 days it was with me was very moderate and would not have accelerated this process. it is a matter of timing. these splits would have occurred regardless of where the knife was.
museums keep many of their items in micro-climate controlled display cases.
to benefit all, it would help to hear from someone with curator experience as to what is the optimal environment for storing knives with natural handle materials. it must be a balancing act, as too moist can affect steel and too dry, the handle material.
until it can be shown otherwise, i consider the moderate temperature and moderate humidity of my home, not too far off from ideal, and certainly more benign and easy to maintain than say in Arizona or Florida or the Arctic.
as previously stated, many knives have been with me in this home for up to 30 years and i have not previously had any problems with shrinkage or oxidation. roland
 
Who stabilized it? Many different processes with varying results. Mike Ludemann of WSSI told me that wood must be dry before stabilizing.

ken
 
rprocter said:
for scientific accuracy i cannot let the above post go unanswered. the shrinkage has NOTHING to do with the environment in my home or where i live.
Click to expand...

Given that the shrinkage demonstrably worsened while the knife was in your possession, I don't see how your local environment can be completely excluded as a contributing factor.

More to the point, though, I don't see why it matters one way or the other. Natural handle materials such as wood, ivory and stag can and will move. There are no guarantees against it and no real utility in attempting to assign blame when it happens. There is no way to go back through time and establish with scientific certainty which factors operated at which times and at which locations to contribute to the shrinkage.

You got a knife in a condition that you were uncertain was "acceptable". You got an answer to that question. You also had the vendor stand up and do everything possible to make the situation right. It wasn't his fault, the maker's fault or your fault. It will be put right. Isn't that enough?

Roger
 
Roger, this is not about blame, but trying to understand the process that occurred and what factors may have influenced or accelerated it.
what would be helpful to all, is to hear how the real experts (i.e. curators) store antique knives. i'm sure it's been studied and not left to chance or assumptions. if that info is significantly different from my home, then i might make changes to my knife storage room to try to modify the environment.
however as this is the only knife (out of about 500) that has ever developed a problem here, i would need to be convinced that my current storage conditions can be improved. roland
 
rprocter said:
Roger, this is not about blame, but trying to understand the process that occurred and what factors may have influenced or accelerated it.
what would be helpful to all, is to hear how the real experts (i.e. curators) store antique knives. i'm sure it's been studied and not left to chance or assumptions. if that info is significantly different from my home, then i might make changes to my knife storage room to try to modify the environment.
however as this is the only knife (out of about 500) that has ever developed a problem here, i would need to be convinced that my current storage conditions can be improved. roland
Click to expand...

I agree roland as just accepting "it happened and the knife will be fixed" doesn't address the whole problem. Especially if the next one does the same.

Recently peterinct posted here that he had a knife for 5 years and examined it periodically to fine no issues, except the last when discovering the stag handle had shrunk away from the pummel about a 1/6". So why all of a sudden after 5 years would this happen? There didn't seem to be any change in the environment.
The condition being discussed is particularly odd in that the wood should not be cracking in roland's more humid environment.
 
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