- Joined
- Oct 25, 2004
- Messages
- 3,178
I didn't have much going on today so I decided that it was time for some maintenance. This included some horn handles, wood handles, scabbards, blades, a 'hawk handle, and more. I'm throwing out a lot of ideas here so bear with me; I'm going to go over what I did/am doing and hopefully the old hands of the Cantina will chime in with some wisdom for us young guns. 
I've heard time and again that lanolin is a good choice for horn. Having absolutely zero experience with horn I went along with this. I took a trip down to Wal-Mart and picked up a 1 lb. tub. I'd briefly considered the Udder Cream but checked at the pharmacy counter first. They do, in fact, sell hydrous lanolin there. For you firearms enthusiasts out there that swear by Ed's Red cleaner (which is frighteningly similar to an old Springfield Armory cleaner recipe from Hatcher's Notebook, might I add -- it ought to be called Hatcher's Cleaner), hydrous lanolin seems to work fine in place of the anhydrous variety. The fireplace is upstairs, meaning that the downstairs (where I work) is usually around 60 degrees -- thick lanolin. I'm bald, no hair dryer. I opted for the chemical approach; I cut it about 50/50 with mineral spirits and wound up with something somewhat thicker than milk after much stirring. It goes on easy, dissolves existing goop, and dries fairly quickly. There's a thin film of lanolin left over when it dries. I figure thinning it down will allow it to penetrate better in cold weather.
My 16.5" AK and AK bowie both needed thicker handles for my hands. I wrapped them in paracord. Not as pretty as the original horn but nearly so. I'm glad I took the time to learn some fancy work with small stuff while underway. It makes starting and stopping the wrap a lot easier. (And nicer looking.) I'll test the "improved" grips at another time. As an experiment, I gave the wrap on the bowie a thick coat of boiled linseed oil, making sure that the cord is saturated. My theory is that the oiled cord, once dry, will stick to itself and the existing handle somewhat and should harden up a bit.
Ignoring the advice of Kismet (sorry Kis, I'm still cursed with the impatience of youth) I went ahead and placed another order for a 20" AK and a 25" Kobra. The AK has already seen some action splitting wood. It's a topic for another day but needless to say, the AK has been banned from wood splitting activities on account of having destroyed the chopping block. (The maul never did that.) The AK is handled with wood. I went about it the same way I do as for an old rifle stock -- boiled linseed oil and lots of it, and some minor sanding with #0000 steel wool between coats. It seems to be working fine.
Scabbards: the Kobra and both AK's had very loose scabbards. My definition of proper scabbard tension is for the knife to be retained while the scabbard is held upside down and shaken, but no more. Only the bowie had a scabbard that was tight enough. (The one scabbard with a snap for the hilt. ) The rest got a warm water soak and a wrap with surgical tubing while drying. Both AK's needed only 10-20 min. drying for proper tension. The Kobra dried all night and is still only barely tight enough, but the length and curve of the blade helps. The bowie's retension strap isn't long enough to clear the built up handle. I oiled it up with a nice amount of neet's foot oil and forced it shut around a wider machete handle. That ought to handle that. The rest of the bowie's sheathe is getting occasional treatments with Kiwi shoe polish to test its effectiveness. A nice benefit of being active duty -- I always have some Kiwi laying around. It's soaking up the wax very quickly...baking it (like I do with a new set of boots) to speed up absorption is not necessary. If Pala's happy with it I probably will be too, but the jury's still out. I like neet's foot on rifle slings but I'm not sure if I want to go that route on a scabbard. Boiled linseed oil is another idea but I want to see some more information on that before I try it. Same with mineral oil and mink oil.
I'm a big believer on using CLP on steel -- a huge believer, in fact. It's just great stuff. There are better things for cleaning, for lubricating, and for preservation, but for all three CLP is very hard to beat. I gave the matter some thought though and I'm switching to mineral oil on the khuks; the reason is, mineral oil is a better choice for wood than CLP and some of that oil is going to get on the scabbard whenever the knife is sheathed. I'd rather it was mineral oil getting in there than CLP. Yes, my CLP is free, but mineral oil is amazingly inexpensive...a bottle costs me less than a dollar and looks like it will last for a very long time.
Kind of OT: the 'hawk is a CS Frontier model with an ash handle. The handle looked great for the first two months of its life; several days later it was completely dried out. To make matters worse, the last time I was throwing it a new thrower was getting some practice too. The handle took a beating. It's getting coats of linseed oil along with the 20" AK and karda/chakma which is why it's being mentioned here. It looks like it's going to make it. The HI wood is much nicer in grain and appearance, but then again, it's not making occasional contact with trees.
Brass tip on the 16.5" AK's scabbard simply popped off in less than a week -- no impact, no damage, just fell off once when picked up. I bent it a tiny bit for more tension and stuck it back on with some 2 ton epoxy. I don't believe that this will be an issue anymore.
Tiny bit of corrosion on the Kobra and its karda. (Chakma was unaffected.) Must be all that humidity out there in Reno. Two minutes, some CLP, and a 3M sanding "scrubby" made it go away.
The red rouge was a PITA. I now understand why there were so many posts dedicated to removing it. On the horn handles, a small arms "toothbrush" cleaning brush and some CLP made very short work of it. Same on the wood handled chakma and karda, although it didn't want to come off the 20" AK's handle for some reason. After it resisted floss, toothpicks, and needles, I just threw the linseed oil on anyway. I figure that after a year or two of use with regular oiling, it will either be gone or the rest of the grip will look so used that it won't be an issue anymore.
This post is meant to generate discussion if nothing else, so don't worry about whether a contribution is worth it or not. I know some of you have some nice secret tricks. It's time to 'fess up.
I've heard time and again that lanolin is a good choice for horn. Having absolutely zero experience with horn I went along with this. I took a trip down to Wal-Mart and picked up a 1 lb. tub. I'd briefly considered the Udder Cream
but checked at the pharmacy counter first. They do, in fact, sell hydrous lanolin there. For you firearms enthusiasts out there that swear by Ed's Red cleaner (which is frighteningly similar to an old Springfield Armory cleaner recipe from Hatcher's Notebook, might I add -- it ought to be called Hatcher's Cleaner), hydrous lanolin seems to work fine in place of the anhydrous variety. The fireplace is upstairs, meaning that the downstairs (where I work) is usually around 60 degrees -- thick lanolin. I'm bald, no hair dryer. I opted for the chemical approach; I cut it about 50/50 with mineral spirits and wound up with something somewhat thicker than milk after much stirring. It goes on easy, dissolves existing goop, and dries fairly quickly. There's a thin film of lanolin left over when it dries. I figure thinning it down will allow it to penetrate better in cold weather.My 16.5" AK and AK bowie both needed thicker handles for my hands. I wrapped them in paracord. Not as pretty as the original horn but nearly so. I'm glad I took the time to learn some fancy work with small stuff while underway. It makes starting and stopping the wrap a lot easier. (And nicer looking.) I'll test the "improved" grips at another time. As an experiment, I gave the wrap on the bowie a thick coat of boiled linseed oil, making sure that the cord is saturated. My theory is that the oiled cord, once dry, will stick to itself and the existing handle somewhat and should harden up a bit.
Ignoring the advice of Kismet (sorry Kis, I'm still cursed with the impatience of youth) I went ahead and placed another order for a 20" AK and a 25" Kobra. The AK has already seen some action splitting wood. It's a topic for another day but needless to say, the AK has been banned from wood splitting activities on account of having destroyed the chopping block. (The maul never did that.) The AK is handled with wood. I went about it the same way I do as for an old rifle stock -- boiled linseed oil and lots of it, and some minor sanding with #0000 steel wool between coats. It seems to be working fine.
Scabbards: the Kobra and both AK's had very loose scabbards. My definition of proper scabbard tension is for the knife to be retained while the scabbard is held upside down and shaken, but no more. Only the bowie had a scabbard that was tight enough. (The one scabbard with a snap for the hilt.
) The rest got a warm water soak and a wrap with surgical tubing while drying. Both AK's needed only 10-20 min. drying for proper tension. The Kobra dried all night and is still only barely tight enough, but the length and curve of the blade helps. The bowie's retension strap isn't long enough to clear the built up handle. I oiled it up with a nice amount of neet's foot oil and forced it shut around a wider machete handle. That ought to handle that. The rest of the bowie's sheathe is getting occasional treatments with Kiwi shoe polish to test its effectiveness. A nice benefit of being active duty -- I always have some Kiwi laying around. It's soaking up the wax very quickly...baking it (like I do with a new set of boots) to speed up absorption is not necessary. If Pala's happy with it I probably will be too, but the jury's still out. I like neet's foot on rifle slings but I'm not sure if I want to go that route on a scabbard. Boiled linseed oil is another idea but I want to see some more information on that before I try it. Same with mineral oil and mink oil.I'm a big believer on using CLP on steel -- a huge believer, in fact. It's just great stuff. There are better things for cleaning, for lubricating, and for preservation, but for all three CLP is very hard to beat. I gave the matter some thought though and I'm switching to mineral oil on the khuks; the reason is, mineral oil is a better choice for wood than CLP and some of that oil is going to get on the scabbard whenever the knife is sheathed. I'd rather it was mineral oil getting in there than CLP. Yes, my CLP is free, but mineral oil is amazingly inexpensive...a bottle costs me less than a dollar and looks like it will last for a very long time.
Kind of OT: the 'hawk is a CS Frontier model with an ash handle. The handle looked great for the first two months of its life; several days later it was completely dried out. To make matters worse, the last time I was throwing it a new thrower was getting some practice too. The handle took a beating. It's getting coats of linseed oil along with the 20" AK and karda/chakma which is why it's being mentioned here. It looks like it's going to make it. The HI wood is much nicer in grain and appearance, but then again, it's not making occasional contact with trees.
Brass tip on the 16.5" AK's scabbard simply popped off in less than a week -- no impact, no damage, just fell off once when picked up. I bent it a tiny bit for more tension and stuck it back on with some 2 ton epoxy. I don't believe that this will be an issue anymore.
Tiny bit of corrosion on the Kobra and its karda. (Chakma was unaffected.) Must be all that humidity out there in Reno.
Two minutes, some CLP, and a 3M sanding "scrubby" made it go away.The red rouge was a PITA. I now understand why there were so many posts dedicated to removing it. On the horn handles, a small arms "toothbrush" cleaning brush and some CLP made very short work of it. Same on the wood handled chakma and karda, although it didn't want to come off the 20" AK's handle for some reason. After it resisted floss, toothpicks, and needles, I just threw the linseed oil on anyway. I figure that after a year or two of use with regular oiling, it will either be gone or the rest of the grip will look so used that it won't be an issue anymore.
This post is meant to generate discussion if nothing else, so don't worry about whether a contribution is worth it or not. I know some of you have some nice secret tricks. It's time to 'fess up.
