Restoration of old gentelman's Bowie

[J. Vietti]

A friend has asked me to help restore an old Bowie knife. The stag handles are very nice and unbroken but the metal of the knife's tang and the handle pins are quite rusty. The stag horn is nearly black and has lost the nice browns and ivory colors one likes to see in a stag handle.

I wonder if anyone can offer advice on:

1. How to remove the handle pins without damaging the scales? I am considering using a hollow drill.

2. How does one restore stag horn to a more original color? I have heard of using neats foot oil and maybe some very fine steel wool.

Thanks in advance for any ideas forum members can offer.

Cheers, John

 

[NickWheeler]

John-

I don't know about restoring the color, but I have taken off old stag scales.

I used the same jig that I use to drill stag scales for a new knife. It's just a very simple aluminum vise that holds the blade by the choil so that the tang will be perpendicular to the drill bit while setting on the drill press table. But first I center-punched the pins very carefully and then used a center-drill to start the holes.

That will drill out the pins really clean. But if they are epoxied on very well, you'll have slim chances of getting them off without at least a little damage.

The knife I did this with was a very old knife that didn't have any sort of adhesive binding the scales (at least not at the point that I got ahold of it).

Good luck.
Nick

 

[Tom Militano]

I think I would hold off on the rework until I knew a little more about the Bowie. You might have something a collector might want left in the original condition. Just a thought.
Tom

[This message has been edited by T. Militano (edited 05-22-2000).]

 

[J. Vietti]

Originally posted by T. Militano:
I think I would hold off on the rework until I knew a little more about the Bowie. You might have something a collector might want left in the original condition. Just a thought.
Tom

[This message has been edited by T. Militano (edited 05-22-2000).]

 

[Jeff Clark]

I'd also hold off "fixing" the knife until I checked its value on the Bernard Levine Collectors Forum.

I would start cleaning the stag by using a soft brush (like a nail brush) and hand soap. There may be a lot of the type of dirt that you would get on your hands (or from your hands) on the handle. Non abrasive hand soap and warm water would be a good first step to reaching the surface.

Drilling pins is a difficult process. You may want to resign yourself to redrilling larger holes and puting in bigger pins when you are done. Try and confine damage you do to the area that you can later drill out. I used to carefully drill off the widened end of a pin and then tap it into the hole with a carefully matched rod. Once I got 3/16" or so protruding from the other side I switched to pulling and twisting using vice grips. You have to be very careful not to scratch the handle while doing this.

For brass pins in slab handles I would slip a utility razor blade under the slab and shear the pins at the bottom by tapping the razor blade with a hammer. I could usually drive the pins out from the back once the slabs were off. If I needed to drill, it was nice to work the backside.


[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 05-22-2000).]