Wood Handle Finish - Gunstock Style
The materials are all available at WalMart - no plug intended, just convenient:
Birchwood Casey Tru Oil
Armor All
Fine Needle File
#0000 Steel wool
Old, Soft Toothbrush
Round Toothpick
600 Grit (not any coarser) Silicon Carbide Sandpaper
BLADE WRAPPING!!!
One or Two Old T-Shirts
FIRST wrap the blade. You will be handling it across your lap, probably, and constantly turning it to work the handle. You may forget exactly where the edge is. It won't forget where you are.
Take the wax finish down to the wood with steel wool, sanding any rough spots, and then polishig them with the wool. When the surface is clean and smooth, apply the first coat of oil.
Apply the oil with your fingertip (if allergeic to solvents, turp, etc, use a Q Tip, but watch out for lint coming off the cotton). Use the absolute least amount you can get on your fingertip, and spread it as far as possible on the wood surface. I usually dip mine out of the cap - a dip into the bottle attracts far too much, and begs for a spilled bottle. Before setting it up for the first coat to dry, rout out the grooves with a toothpick. They will contain dust from the final polishing which will detract from the final result. If there are places where the groove is uneven, or there are hard deposits of dust, clean/even them up with the needle file, tryng to keep the sides and bottom even. Just make light clean-up passes with the file.
Set the blade aside and forget it for at least one day. If you are in a high-humidity area, drying time between coats may be as much as three days as the finish builds.
When the first coat is dry, steel wool down to the wood (not really - just until the wood appears to be bare. I won't be. There will be a very fine layer of oil that has penetrated the surface, and mixed with what was left of the original wax. Oil it again, just the barest coat, spreading the least amount of oil over the most surface possible. Then, "spit shine" with just a drop of Armor All on one fingertip. This will smooth out the damp coat even farther, and penetrate, thoroughly bonding the two coats. Drying time is again at least one day, more if the humidity is high. The test is whether the surface is hard or tacky to a light touch. The rest is all repetition - Steel wool, oil, Armor All, Dry, Dry, on and on.
How many coats? four minimum for me. Depending on your patience and what you begin to see as the grain begins to come out and the surface deepens, you may begin to wonder just how much more another coat will reveal. I once put 70 coats on a Hogue grip, a piece of Pao Ferro that must have come from down in the root system somewhere. Finished, it showed Black, Gold, Tan Caramel and just a hint of Green that must have been a mineral somewhere in there. It also had a black, spidery thread that ran through all the rest. The Saatisal isn't that varied, but some of it is that dramatic. The level of satisfaction depends on your patience, but even four or five coats will drastically change the looks of your blade.
There is no permission needed to use the above - even if you print it out and leave if for your parakeet to read Just a soothing way to spruce up a Khuk, if you're willing.
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I use it to keep rubber and plastic flexible and clean. (Try it on electric cords on yer power tools. Leave it wet for overnight or longer and it will make them nice and flexible.) I suppose it contains plasticizers? Dunno, I'm not a chemist. Perhaps it keeps the oil-varnish flexible...? I would be afraid it would interfere with the adhesion of subsequent coats. Are you sure it was Armor All?
Dunno how I missed it. Might have been having a cocktail...
