Pink stag?

jdm61

jdm61

itinerant metal pounder
Joined
Aug 12, 2005
Messages
47,357
This is an early Al Pendray wootz integral hunter that I bought a number of years back. The stag turned pink as you can see. I have tried to polish and even dye a bit to no avail. I thought the sheath might have caused it, but it is a lined sheath and there is pink even on the parts that were not in contact with the smooth leather. What is a poor boy to do?
This has pretty much rendered a valuable collectable almost worthless.
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Interesting color.
What about applying some potassium permanganate? That might give you a color more pleasing to your eye?
 
The latest Blade magazine stated that Al Pendray passed away. He will be missed. If the knife was mine I would leave it the way it is.
 
Mitch, I think that the PP may have done this. I associate that color and purple with PP.
 
I have sold off my collection over the past few years including two Morans, two Hendricksons, a Fisk, a Hudson, a couple by Mark Sentz, a Dean and a few others. This one is still around because I considered it to be unsellable.
Tom Lewis said:
The latest Blade magazine stated that Al Pendray passed away. He will be missed. If the knife was mine I would leave it the way it is.
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Did Al Pendray make the sheath or coordinate providing the sheath? If so, I'd leave it as is.
 
Doubt if it is the PP. Gonna guess maybe Fiebings leather dye did this. Having done a few with Fiebings leather dye and getting this result and having done thousands with PP and not getting this result. Use to get pinks sometimes using Fiebings Saddle Tans or Light Brown. Wow that was as about clear as mud. I meant using the leather dye to dye the stag. Wasn't talking about the sheath at all. Lot of folks will use leather dye to color the antler and I have done this in the past. Sometimes I would get that color pink when doing that. After switching to PP I've never had that issue again.
 
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Willie71 said:
Did Al Pendray make the sheath or coordinate providing the sheath? If so, I'd leave it as is.
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Warren, the sheath is an alligator skin pouch from Sullivan's Holster shop, the Randall sheath people.
 
It was "in the white" before it turned pink like pretty much all of Al's stag knives that I have seen. I have had one other piece of stag that was dark purple and Fiebings did change it, just make it darker purple. The liner is smoothen leather. Do you think that did it?There is a littlest of the pink up by the buttcap where the handles free of the sheath.
Horsewright said:
Doubt if it is the PP. Gonna guess maybe Fiebings leather dye did this. Having done a few with Fiebings leather dye and getting this result and having done thousands with PP and not getting this result. Use to get pinks sometimes using Fiebings Saddle Tans or Light Brown.
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Too uniform to be dye transfer from the sheath. It is interesting that it developed into pink from the white. I'd still bet on the Fiebings dye though. On the several that I had do that, they absolutely looked just like what you've pictured. But they did do it as they were worked not later. Not all the stag I dyed that way turned pink though. It would be interesting to see if they have now after many years. Quine sabe?

I'm no collector or expert on such but I do know that sometimes unique things like this increase value not decrease. Particularly after the passing of the maker.
 
I doubt its from potassium permangante "note, this is from my expereince as a chemist, not as someone who works with stag"

PP is a potent oxidizer, while it iself is a wonderful shade of purple, it stains everything it touches brown. Just brown. It oxidizes many of the compounds responsible for color, and that combined with its natural color tends to produce a lovely shade of brown. Its not lovely, most of the time its a terrible stain the reminds me of iodine stains.

And thats why im not allowed to do chemistry in the house any more.
 
Some of the old timers would dye deer horn and other with Ritz dyes. Boiled in the dye to get it to penetrate.
 
As mentioned above, potassium permanganate only turns brown, other than the initial purple of the product itself. It actually burns the stag, it does not dye it. The more times you apply, the darker brown it gets. I think it would be your best bet to fix it.
 
If this is a knife that you didn't make or put the handle on, that isn't otherwise showing signs of exposure to anything, i.e. no pitting or problems on the steel or fittings, I'd leave it alone, and not worry yourself over how you "feel" it's supposed to look. If it's aged this way naturally, then consider it a feature. IMO, altering it is the only thing that'll diminish it's value. You may not like it, but someone else may consider it an appealing novelty. If it became this way on it's own, it's got a unique feature that a similar piece may not. My 2c.
 
I like it as is and I would not try to alter it because it might not come out better and my opinion is to leave original collector things alone. Should you ever want to sell it I doubt you have a hard time finding a buyer for an untouched original. Its just my opinion though. Larry
 
LARRYZ10 said:
I like it as is and I would not try to alter it because it might not come out better and my opinion is to leave original collector things alone. Should you ever want to sell it I doubt you have a hard time finding a buyer for an untouched original. Its just my opinion though. Larry
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I do want to sell it ,but I think that I will get hosed.
 
But, there is really nothing you can do about the stag. It was originally dyed-and not with potassium permanganate. Something turned the dyed part pink. The only way to correct it is to grind the dyed part away. Leave it alone.
 
A discoloured original is more valuable than a "restored" item, in my experience. Leave it alone.
 
Bill, I did a little "test sanding" on one part and you are right. It appears to goes too depot remove. it also seems be one of those very dense pieces that you run across occasionally, which makes it even more puzzling. it was otherwise an almost perfectly sized and shaped piece for this applications up until it did a Barney the Dinosaur impersonation.
 
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