To Chiruwa or not - That is the question

DPris said:
I've been applying Ballistol two or three times a day to two horns for 5 days.
Not seeing much improvement there.

I do like the look of the horns, but I'm thinking I'll stick to wood from here on out.

The wood on the Chitlangi Bowie hasn't shrunk much at all since '06.
Denis
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Agreed, I usually do not see much improvement with horn after soaking in mineral oil, but after treatment the horn is really nice looking though.
 
Steve Tall said:
I didn't grasp how a vacuum would increase the absorption, so I looked into the process for stabilizing wood. The vacuum removes air from the pores and voids in the submerged wood. It's after the vacuum is removed that the submerged wood more readily absorbs the liquid resin (at normal atmospheric pressure). The wood then needs to be baked to harden the resin (for the process I read about, at least).
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I thought it was interesting because I work with sintered bearing manufacturers (for now) and they do the whole process almost identical. Sintered bearings are made of metal powder mixtures compressed to fuse together with micro voids designed to absorb and retain lubricants. The commercial stabilizers may even use some of the same machinery but who knows? We measure the precise weight of the bearing before and after treatment knowing the porosity of the material and can actually calculate the volume absorbed according to the known density of the fluid. Thats part of our quality control process.
our process for filling fluids into a porosity (sp. bearings):
1. Introduce to vacuum and pull down to specified value for specified time.
2. Introduce fluid to completely cover porous media (bearings) while maintaining vacuum for specified time
3. When vacuum is released the porous media will absorb the fluid since it completely surrounds the media.
4. Release vacuum and apply pressure while media is completely submerged for specified amount of time.
5. Release pressure and drain fluid. I suppose this is where you would bake to cure the material in place if you were stabilizing wood.
The times vary depending on material, type of fluid, temp, etc. Various mixes of fluids are used depending on nature of porosity and operating conditions ( high temp high speed etc. so many variations.

Im thinking this process has to be very similar to stabilizing wood and is proven technology and precisely controlled. Many manufacturers will not tell you exactly how they do it as it is their proprietary secret. I think Bawanna is right that these guys have done a lot of trial and error and have the market to themselves because of this accumulated knowledge and experience but I do think it is possible for someone to achieve satisfactory results say if you just stick to satisal wood. Much like working with 5160 steel knowing how to forge, quench, temper, etc. before you move to another type of steel. I suspect the learning curve would be extensive to start your own company for example. Id try it at home but commercially...nope!
 
I'm sure it can be done. He mentioned the forumula that make a good stabilization but not make it brittle, that is the key and of course as you say I'm sure he's not gonna give out his recipe.
 
Day 4 - I spare you the pic... Still no noticeable changes.
I'll leave it alone for few more days.
 
snowwolf said:
Day 4 - I spare you the pic... Still no noticeable changes.
I'll leave it alone for few more days.
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Maybe roughing the surface with 0000 steel wool will remove some wax/oil barrier which might be preventing Penetration so far.

Also try heating it a bit. This oil becomes much more liquid.

The handle is a cylinder so it might expand in all directions and thus only a fraction of it along the tang. So it might not show as well even if something is happening.

The best way to measure absorbtion is by measuring the weight of the Kuk before and after.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
The best way to measure absorbtion is by measuring the weight of the Kuk before and after.
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The other thing I'm looking is the level of liquid in the container. I'm expecting it to go down a little with absorption in the handles. It doesn't move either.

How would you heat it?
 
The jar is wide and if it only absorbs half an ounce it wouldn't show with the liquid level very much but it's still good to have half an ounce in the wood even if it seems like the level didn't move.
Also some of the oil which goes into the handle makes it expand and thus the resulting volume change in the jar isn't as big as the volume of oil being absorbed.

I microwaved mine until it became almost too hot too touch.
It stayed warm for at least an hour.
When it got warmer I just kept it out in the sun.
Soon it will be so hot here I could just do it in the garage without any tricks.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
The jar is wide and if it only absorbs half an ounce it wouldn't show with the liquid level very much but it's still good to have half an ounce in the wood even if it seems like the level didn't move.
Also some of the oil which goes into the handle makes it expand and thus the resulting volume change in the jar isn't as big as the volume of oil being absorbed.

I microwaved mine until it became almost too hot too touch.
It stayed warm for at least an hour.
When it got warmer I just kept it out in the sun.
Soon it will be so hot here I could just do it in the garage without any tricks.
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You have bigger balls than me. I wouldn't dare putting this kind of combustible in a microwave. :-)

As much as I didn't want to file that much on the handle at first. It is starting to become a viable alternative option to a full rehandling job.

I'll try to keep the notch on the tang and match it with the shrunk wood. I'm still not sure how I will deal with the bolster.
 
snowwolf said:
You have bigger balls than me. I wouldn't dare putting this kind of combustible in a microwave. :-)

As much as I didn't want to file that much on the handle at first. It is starting to become a viable alternative option to a full rehandling job.

I'll try to keep the notch on the tang and match it with the shrunk wood. I'm still not sure how I will deal with the bolster.
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Nah no bigger ball. I guess.
Just being a scientist. Not like that obvious from the beginning fake Eugene guy from The Walking Dead.

Combustion happens with this oil only when it polymerizes fast and produces more heat than can be transported away until it hits ignition temperatures.
Soaked in cloth and bunched up it has a large surface area and oxidises magnitudes faster than in a jar. Try to ignite a candle with and without the wig, same thing. Also the heat gets trapped in the cloth bundle
and
blast off.
:eek:

About 180C are needed to get fumes going (like when you heat oil too hot in your pan) and quite a lot more to ignite. About 350C to fire and 220 to boil.
So my hand hot temp was maximum 60C and thus safe.

Heat in increments of 20 seconds, stirr occasionally to avoid building up areas of higher temperature and you'll be on the even safer side.

Don't do it like Steven Seagull and add a metal sponge/ steel wool to the jar. The sparks will ignite the oil around them which can be enough heat to get the whole jar ignite very very fast.

If you try this without the knowledge only then you have balls.
 
snowwolf said:
As much as I didn't want to file that much on the handle at first. It is starting to become a viable alternative option to a full rehandling job.
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You don't really have to file the entire edge of the tang on both sides. That would be a lot of work.

You only need to round over the edges, in other words, file down the "corners" along the length of the tang. The tang will still stand out from the wood scales, but they will blend together smoothly and feel fine in the hand. I've seen plenty of western-type full tang knives that are made that way, with G10 scales that don't go all the way to the edge of the tang.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Don't do it like Steven Seagull and add a metal sponge/ steel wool to the jar. The sparks will ignite the oil around them which can be enough heat to get the whole jar ignite very very fast.

If you try this without the knowledge only then you have balls.
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Oh you mean I didn't have to leave the Kuks in the jar while microwaving it... ok ok, now I get.

(That was a joke - I know better, but I was wondering about potential fume and weird unwanted reactions - Since I've seen fat temperature raising really quick in a microwave I didn't know how that Tung oil would behave)
 
snowwolf said:
Oh you mean I didn't have to leave the Kuks in the jar while microwaving it... ok ok, now I get.

(That was a joke - I know better, but I was wondering about potential fume and weird unwanted reactions - Since I've seen fat temperature raising really quick in a microwave I didn't know how that Tung oil would behave)
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Oh. Was talking about Linseed oil. Tung oil temps I would have to look up.

Only leave the Kuks in the microwave for the special secret heat treatment.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Oh. Was talking about Linseed oil. Tung oil temps I would have to look up.

Only leave the Kuks in the microwave for the special secret heat treatment.
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Pussycats ignite at 280ºC. Roaches at 1135ºC and Keith Richards never ignites:D
 
If anyone asked me to bet what were the odds on reading here about Keith Richards improbable combustion. I would have said next to none.

Once again ndog, you beat the odds :D
 
I feel like I should know what a Keith Richards is, sometimes you guys make me feel so dum.
 
Bawanna said:
I feel like I should know what a Keith Richards is, sometimes you guys make me feel so dum.
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I was wondering the same thing. The name seems familiar. He's probably the guitarist or singer for some band. Or an outfielder for one of those baseball teams.

I've never cared for Chuck Norris since I saw a movie in which he was teaching people how to get the better of someone holding a gun to your back. One of those karate techniques that might work for someone who's been doing it for twenty years, but is suicide for anyone else. Not a good thing to show impressionable teenagers on screen. I was glad when Bruce Lee kicked his ass in a movie. Actually, Bruce Lee killed him in that movie, and Norris did ok for the first half of the fight, but there was no gun to the back on either side.

I guess this is off-topic, but we were looking at the original topic in the rear view mirror when we got onto the question of the temperature at which roaches ignite.
 
I was thinking he was that exercise dude with the girlyman striped Daisy Duke shorts and fro red hair do?

I like Chuck Norris just fine, same with Sylvester Stallone, but their best movies are the ones where they don't talk much.

When they speak it all goes away for me.
 
I thought KR was a popular brand of cigaret old guys used to smoke or some sort of a mix with a lot of alcohol in it.
 
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