Something odd happened to my Queen..

[JD Mandrell]

I just bought a Queen Mountain Man folder last week, today for the first time I carried it in a dark brown leather pocket pouch I made for it out of suede, to protect the carved bone from coins and key and such. After about 5 hours in my pocket, I took it out to cut a heavy plastic bundling strap on some newspapers, and found that the nickel bolsters had turned a bright gold color and it will not come off. I'm not really complaining, it looks kinda cool but is this common?

 

[Gus Kalanzis]

Leather and suede are processed by several methods many of which employ pretty caustic chemicals. Sounds to me like the suede used has some chemicals in it that reacted with the nickel silver.

 

[WIL TERRY]

This " corrosion " is verdegris which forms on nickle silver, and brass for that matter , from the tanning agents in most leather. Leather processed in old Mexico is the worst offender in my experience. I don't know about now, but they use to use horse piss for a curing/tanning agent. This worked very well indeed but left many things behind in the leather to cause the problems we're discussing. All of the sheathes I have for the folding hunter knives cause this if I leave the knives in 'em. To the best of my recollection these sheathes are all from SCHRADE 25 or 30 years ago.

 

[JD Mandrell]

This " corrosion " is verdegris which forms on nickle silver, and brass for that matter , from the tanning agents in most leather. Leather processed in old Mexico is the worst offender in my experience. I don't know about now, but they use to use horse piss for a curing/tanning agent. This worked very well indeed but left many things behind in the leather to cause the problems we're discussing. All of the sheathes I have for the folding hunter knives cause this if I leave the knives in 'em. To the best of my recollection these sheathes are all from SCHRADE 25 or 30 years ago.

Thanks, I made the pouch out of suede scraps bought at a local hobby store. this was the first time I put anything with nickel bolsters in one though. I have now noticed that the carved bone scales have darkened also, but it's giving the knife a real "aged" look that's not bugging me to bad.