My first 110 (finger grooved)

Hm. Well, shortly after I asked my question, I decided to try wiping down the knife with mineral oil. After rubbing a little, the fingerprints came right out of the brass. So for now, I'm just going to wipe my knife down with mineral oil about once a week and see how that does. I may wanna check out Brasso though. Could come in handy for some of my other hobbies.
 
I find it takes about 3-4 months before the brass needs cleaned. We all have our favorite cleaners. Mine is Wrights Brass polish. I used to swear by Never Dull but found Wrights to be 10 times(no exaggeration) easier.
 
GundaManiac said:
Hm. Well, shortly after I asked my question, I decided to try wiping down the knife with mineral oil. After rubbing a little, the fingerprints came right out of the brass. So for now, I'm just going to wipe my knife down with mineral oil about once a week and see how that does. I may wanna check out Brasso though. Could come in handy for some of my other hobbies.
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The mineral oil is a good idea. I'll have to give that a try with mine.

Another possibility, albeit a little more ambitious, would be to put a 'satin' finish on the brass. It wouldn't eliminate the tarnish issue, but fingerprints wouldn't be as obvious. Any highly polished surface will really make fingerprints stand out.

I refinished the bolsters on a Buck 112 a while back. My goal was to restore the original shine to 'like new'. The bolsters were scratched, and even had some fairly deep 'dings' in them. I used wet/dry sandpaper (starting with 320 grit) and a small, drafting-type rubber eraser as a sanding 'block', around which I wrapped the sandpaper. I noticed while I was working on it, around 400/600 grit produced a very attractive satin finish. Although I went ahead and finished them to a high polish (through 2000 grit, followed by Simichrome), I sort of made a 'mental note' to remember how a satin finish could look very good on these knives.

Edit:
Here's a pic, with the bolster sanded to 'satin' finish:
 
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Durbin said:
David, I really like the look of those satin bolsters!

Barritt
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Thank you. :thumbup:

That was an 'interim' step on the 112, on it's way to final polish. That project was sort of ambitious for me, but I might go the satin route the next time. It didn't take long for my shiny brass to get fingerprinted again. Just a little sweat, oils and dirt on the hands, and BINGO! There it is again. But it's at least looking like a true 'user' now. The 'patina' is sort of growing on me. :)
 
That satin finish looks amazing! It'd sure complement the satin finish of the standard 420hc blade very nicely. Makes me want to try that out on my knife. Definitely something to keep in mind once my brass bolsters become ridiculously worn to the point where I'm going to want to restore them.
 
My 110 developed a pit in the side of the blade, which I thought was extremely strange since I'd always read that a more polished surface resists rust better than a rougher finish, and my blade had a near mirror polish finish from when I handrubbed the blade to eliminate some scratches I had put in it from sharpening. Since I had two other knives that needed work anyway (Paradigm with a broken spring and a used Cherry Vantage with a worn out linerlock), I figured it was about time for my first experience with Buck's customer service. I emailed Joe Houser about the fee for reblading my 110 and getting warranty work done on the other two knives. I got my knives back a week after I sent them in (much quicker than I expected!), which surprised me because I had been waiting for an email regarding payment for the reblade and wasn't expecting my knives back until I had gotten that email. It never occurred to me that the reblade would be covered as warranty work due to the pitting in my blade.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my 110 had been rebladed with a mirror polished blade with a BCCI stamp and 2010 date code. The fact that the date code on the new blade matched the date code my knife originally featured was a nice touch. The factory mirror polished blade makes me feel like the knife is too nice to use now; it just looks so beautiful.

Since I realized I had never taken pictures of my 110FG and 112FG together, I figured now was as good a time as any:

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With the talk recently about blade play in 110s and how the "H" where the blade and lock meet have been getting rounded off in modern times compared to the square "H" of older 110s, I figured I'd snap a picture of the "H" on my 110 and 112. As you can see, the 112 has a rounded corner on the left side of the blade. This matches my experience from handling various 110s at local stores. My rebladed 110 has slightly rounded corners as well, but the blade/lock interface is more flush and square than I've ever seen in person on a modern 110. This pleases me greatly, as well as the fact that my rebladed 110 came with no lateral or vertical blade play; time will tell if it develops blade play under my uses for the knife, but at the very least I can say that my knife came back from the factory with solid lockup. :thumbup:

The 112 is on the right and the 110 is on the left:

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And lastly, my 110 with my EDC Vantage. I love the new mirror polished blade on my 110 :D

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Many thanks to Joe Houser and the wonderful employees at Buck for repairing my Paradigm, replacing the lock on my Cherry Vantage, and reblading my 110! I've never really dealt with any companies before regarding warranty work or factory repairs of any kind, and this was a fantastic experience.
 
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Nice, have heard nothing but good things about their service. I really like the look of those finger groove models.
 
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