> The yellow mellows like bone or ivory, IMO.
The bone is stabilized, and according to my armchair reading, stabilization also stabilizes color. I defer to experience others may have had with GEC Yellow bone. Did it change over time?
> They will darken slightly, and become slightly more translucent, if you oil them.
Stabilized Bone does not accept oil, with the exemption of any part of the bone with pores large enough not to be filled by the Acrylic. But neither water nor Oil will penetrate acrylic.
> Oil the blades a lot, but the handles not often - once or twice a year. If you handle it a lot, oil the bone less, as your hands will give it some.
Spoken by a man who owns many many beautiful unstabilized bone handled knives.
Im not sure the rules that apply to unstabilized bone, apply to stabilized.
otoh, Kamagong and others have demonstrated that Acrylic can be dyed, by tea, or Rit or other means.
I invite others to educate me with photos of before and after changes on your stabilized covers.
here are 3 knives that I have oiled very very heavily with mineral oil. AFAIK only the Charlow is Stabilized.
the stabilized bone Charlow on the left shows color variations that were there from the beginning, before oiling, the darker mottled parts.
The Russell shows the type of wet spreading stain from the oil soaking in, including transporting rust from the pins. This bone is the softest of the 3 samples, and is the most damaged by excess oiling.
The Remington bone shows an oil stain from the bolster towards the middle pin. This bone seems denser and harder than the bone on the Russell. The Remington did not change color anywhere near what the Russell did.
fwiw, Bernard Levine also warns against oiling bone, claims it can be harmful. Im pretty sure his comment is based on his experience with unstabilized bone.
But I may also be taking his comment out of context, as he may mean not to oil a collectible, you decide, read it for yourself:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...al-end-stockman-with-jigged-bone-scales/page2
"DO NOT SOAK bone or other organics in oil"
this is the earliest photo I have of the Charlow, not sure if I had oiled it yet or not, nor is it in the same lighting as the current photo above. You can see all the character mottling, that I believe was there from the beginning. imo, Acrylic does to bone, what oil does, it darkens some areas and not others, due to variations in density.
here is the Charlow after wrapping in vinegar soaked paper towel. I would propose that any darkening is due to color from the metal dissolved into the vinegar, akin to ebonizing. I later polished off all the forced patina, as seen in the first photo above, taken today.
Here is the earliest photo I have of the Russell. I believe I had already oiled it, but I also believe I later oiled it even more. You may be able to tell the oil staining around the pins is less developed. I believe at this stage I had only wiped oil onto the scales. Later I actually submerged the whole knife in an oil bath, leading to major increases in oil staining as shown in the first photo above.
This is the earliest photo of the Remington I have. Im pretty sure I had already oiled it at least once. I later oiled it more, as you may or may not be able to tell in the first photo above.
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I recently sought confirmation from GEC regarding their use of stabilized materials. Apparently I had misunderstood an earlier conversation. GEC informs me that:
"The only thing we use that is stabilized is Primitive Bone. All the rest of our bone is not stabilized nor are most of the woods"
I will be preparing several delicious servings of figurative Crow, no birds will be harmed during my re-education. I apologize if anyone was misled by my earlier posts that claimed all GEC bone is stabilized. At this point I dont even know if the CheChen is stabilized or not. Feel free to just ignore anything I say until I graduate from knife materials 101, sometime next year maybe.
