So I dyed my Rough Rider barlow

[meako]

I used black RIT on a Case "new black" Saddlehorn which turned it absolute jet black from a horrid purply grey colour.
if you search up Dye on here you will find the threads.

 

[PaulBosley]

Good luck with the Dremel nail nick. You're a braver man than I!

I've gone another route but its not that bad with a little creative vice and clamp work. Clamp dremel flex head to chuck on drill press, use scissor clamp to clamp blade to one side of mill vice attached to drill press bed and there you go pull the handle turn the knob and your done.

 

[PaulBosley]

Filed the kick cut a relief still need to hit it with some sand paper and clean it up from my dirty fingers. But it opens nicely with access to both nail nicks.

 

[CoffeeCat2112]

Ah! And you have taken a photo of your handiwork to share with the class, right?

Edit to add: Laggy internet tonight. I see you posted a pic above. Nice!

 

[PaulBosley]

Not totally happy but have to tuck the kids. May go back out and enlarge the cut out a little more to better match the nick and one more tiny swipe on the kick. Need to find one to dye now lol didn't mean to truck the thread.

 

[KrisNZ]

Wow! looks 100% better dyed, well done.
Kris

 

[Jack Black]

Seriously, I like what you've done here. I woulda RIT-dyed that sucker blue, and only later considered more subtle approaches.

~ P.

I came across an old knife a few weeks ago with MOP handles that had run into a leaky fountain pen with that effect!

The dealer will happily exchange it for free if I pay the shipping both ways.

Bit of a cheek. They're cheap, but he still sent you a defective knife.

Filed the kick cut a relief still need to hit it with some sand paper and clean it up from my dirty fingers. But it opens nicely with access to both nail nicks.

Glad it worked out. And you got to invent (waiting to be corrected) the Easy-Open Barlow!

 

[mike Berkovitch]

There are no stores close that carry RR so I got it through the mail. The dealer will happily exchange it for free if I pay the shipping both ways. I'd be better off just getting another one since the shipping was included in the price. I can not believe how little these cost. Postage both ways costs almost as much as the knife lol. Speaking of cost I always wanted to order a whole case of knives.....

Since you'll order another, you might disassemble the first one and take the secondary away so you'll end up with unique RR.
Mike

 

[midnight flyer]

I wish I could do a better job presenting it; it's close in color/tone to some of the lighter examples of their tobacco bone I've seen. You'll just have to imagine it a few shades warmer.

Closer?

A little color help and some saturation and it even looks better!

Robert

 

[meako]

was the soap and salt in the tea stain dye mix or was that for cleanup?
It looks considerably better I think. I'm gonna get one just to have a go at that.Won't use PG tips tho-my wife is English and they are not widely available here.
I'll try Twinings Irish Breakfast -more tannin.

 

[CoffeeCat2112]

Robert,
Thanks! Yes, that's closer as far as how much color the bone actually absorbed, yes.

meako.
The soap and salt went into the mix. The soap is to break down surface tension to make things more soluble, I believe. I probably didn't need the salt, as that was probably only for actual dye, but I included it, in case it would somehow contribute to the absorption ability of the mix.

In hindsight, the dark tea probably did most of the the work. I would think any dark tea would be ok. Good luck!

 

[CoffeeCat2112]

Here's a little better shot for the color, but blurrier.

 

[Jack Black]

You may have started a trend here Blaine!

 

[CoffeeCat2112]

Gotta post pics when you're finished.

 

[rune1279]

So...forgive the thread necromancy, but I tried this today and had an observation to add:

If you should happen to, say, acquire a chestnut brown CV peanut with mismatched scales that fade from a nice chestnut, through an unfortunate orange, to an obnoxious pink and then plain white at the bolster, and you should think to yourself that it would not be so jarring if it were amended with brown to cool off those obnoxious shades, there is something worth remembering:

Tea has acid in it.

Oh, it's not a ton, but if you simmer your CV knife in a panful of triple-strong Twinings English Breakfast (Fortnum & Mason being hard to come by here in the colonies, dontcha know) for a half an hour or so, your blades will acquire the most spectacular blue-black patina...mostly on the parts that are not safely hidden away in the channel in the handle, judging by the abrupt line on mine.

Well, it's not the end of the world -- 95% of it can be polished out with any old metal polish. The remaining haze I'm happy to count as my new peanut's first legit adventure. Also, the resulting color is perfect!

Thanks for the idea and writeup, Blaine -- it was just the trick.

--Mark

 

[CoffeeCat2112]

Got pics?

 

[jc57]

I posted this over in the bone dyeing tutorial over in the Maintenance, Tinkering, and Embellishment forum a while back. Not exactly on topic since I used actual dye and not tea, and it wasn't a Rough Rider Barlow, but anyway:

Before:


After:

 

[greg c]

Well done, that's a huge improvement.

 

[jc57]

Yeah, the Case Winterbottom Sunset Bone in reality didnt look much like the catalog picture. Figured I didn't have much to lose.

 

[stevomiller]

Dang JC, that turned out fantastic! It's very close in appearance to a pretty Queen whittler I own (which is a good thing) ;-)