Wenger Evo Wood, care question...

OldHercDude

OldHercDude

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Already started and should have asked prior. Oops.

Have a Wenger Evo 11 Wood, about 8 years old IIRC. Wood was never finished as well as I thought it should be, but was never an issue. Until recently. Some of the areas with grabby grain have gotten worse, and a couple of spots have lifted enough to catch clothing and most likely would leave a splinter if I ran a finger the wrong way with a little pressure.

I was working on treating some new inexpensive wood cooking spoons and needed to knock down some lifted grain before the second coat of mineral oil. I took the same 600 grit sand paper to the Evo, took the edges off cuts for the awl and Phillips, did a very light sanding of the scales, then sanded just a little more over the grabby spots to remove lifted grain. Felt significantly better in the hand. Blew the excess dust off and hit with a tack cloth, then rubbed mineral oil liberally over the wood.

Question is - did I mess up the wood? Is the mineral oil going to swell the wood too much? Never did this in the past with other wood scales, so info from more experienced folk would be appreciated.
 
Depending on how it turns out, I'll look at tung oil if it dries out and needs any treatment later down the road.

I don't think the light sanding hurt anything. There's a minor amount of change in the lightness of the finish in some spots on one scale, but I'm not concerned about that. More concerned about the wood catching on things and the potential to splinter off at some point. The sharp tips in the grabby area lifted and I had to lightly sand again after the first coat of oil had absorbed. Second coat on and I'll check it in the morning.
 
Yeah, you don't want your knife to be the *cause* of a splinter! Keep us posted. I've never considered a wood scaled SAK but I love the scales on a couple of my Bucks (110 and a couple 501s).
 
Hate splinters - especially the ones small enough you have a difficult time seeing them and getting them dug out.

I hadn't seen a SAK with wood at the time, and bought it out of curiosity. Not a bad little knife. This issue with the wood started after being in Arizona for a couple years now.

I'll see how it turns out over the next day or two and post a pic when done.
 
Update. Done. Feels much better. Areas with grabby grain and potential splinters have been dealt with. I'll see how long the mineral oil and butcher block conditioner work.

You can see the mismatched scales and the saw chatter marks on the mark side. It was the last one he had, and from what he said it was the only one of the order with scale issues.

The finger dip area above the "W" and the transition were where the grabby wood was, and the edge of the cut for access to the awl was sharp. The pile side wood is much nicer, the area that needed to be addressed was the cut-out for the phillips head - several sharp pieces were lifting and catching, and the edge was also sharp. Almost like the factory failed to sand the cut edges when they finished the scales. Other than a slight lightening in areas of the mark side where I had to sand multiple times to remove the grabbiness, it doesn't look much different than original.

A shot while waiting for a coat of the oil to absorb.
original.jpg


And a couple finished shots.
original.jpg


original.jpg
 
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