Treatment for wooden handle

S

Snowman366

Joined
Apr 16, 2006
Messages
27
Have a factory-new Scandinavian knife with an arctic birch wooden handle that has some nice figure in it. The handle was sanded down at the factory, mated to the blade and shipped without any extra care to the wood. Curious to know what sort of furniture wax or rubbing oil I can use to bring out the luster in the wood. Want to do a nice job, so I'm not necessarily looking for a quick fix.

Thanks for listening...
 
Birch is a very dense wood. I would wax the handle with simple paste wax.
Bill
 
I just use neutral shoe polish, but any good, non-abrasive car wax should work.
You will have to re-apply it fairly often.
Bill
 
If you wanted to give it a luster and a 'seal' you could also use some tung oil.
The wax Mr. DeShivs mentioned will work fine as well , you could also use hard beezwax polished in well, which I think would help make it grippier.

I put seal in quotes up top because since it is a pretty dense wood sealing it is not as imperative as it would be with a softer wood.

Post some pics of your finished product !!!
:D
:)
 
On knives that get used a lot, I usually go with Danish oil. It sort of seeps into the wood and hardens, so you don't have to reapply it often. I also like the texture it creates on a handle (it doesn't leave a surface film). It can darken the wood though in some cases. Depending on what kind you use, it may make the arctic birch a golden color.

Boiled linseed oil is another option that really brings out the grain, although it can darken wood too. You also have to reapply it every now and then. Boiled linseed oil followed by a few coats of paste wax makes a nice traditional finish. I use Johnson's paste wax. (The history of S.C. Johnson is kind of interesting. They've been in business for 120 years and have been owned by the same family through 5 generations.)

The only brand of tung oil that I've used is Minwax and it was pretty awful. It's very sticky and you have to rub it down extensively to get a good finish. I did an Internet search and found out that Minwax is actually a type of varnish, not real tung oil. If you want to go the tung oil route, make sure you use pure tung oil and not something like Minwax.
 
High end wood gun stocks are finished with tung oil and it makes a very good and durable finish. However, to do it right it takes several coats with sanding in between. Oil, sand, oil, sand, oil, sand, etc. You probably don't want to do this to your knife handle, but this allows for the oil to seep into every pore in the wood and to make a weatherproof seal. It can also be buffed to a high polish if desired or left as a matte finish.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top