Will Vaseline work?

airyq

airyq

Gold Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2003
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Further to the previous threads of using mineral oil to preserve wood/bone/stag handles.

I have not been able to buy pure mineral oil. I am only able to get baby oil or Vaseline.

I am not keen on the idea of using baby oil, which is mineral oil with a fragrance added, for the reason that I think my knives would end up smelling funny.

Has any one tried Vaseline? My guess is that it should work in place of mineral oil, only perhaps a little slower due to the higher viscosity.

Any one have any experience or ideas?
 
Vaseline is a petroleum product, it might work, but it also may stain the bone, or stag. I would get a piece of stag, or bone first and try it and see what happens. regular mineral oil will stain alos, but usually its a "light stain", not dark.
 
Try the baby oil on an EDC or other newer knife as a test. I've used baby oil on mine with no problems and the frgrance will dissipate. Once, after a bad storm in Pensacola ,all I had to lube my EDC's was a mineral oil based hair tonic. It took 3 days of care for the leather sheath to dry properly. I switched to nylon after that.
 
Pure mineral oil is sold in every Pharmacy, as a laxative. I have been using pure alcohol, also from the pharmacy to degrease my knives/swords with and they also have mineral oil in stock. They use it in a variety of products. Just try to get the most liquid one. Mineral oil is really an inert sealant. It covers the bare steel with a inert layer of protective oil. This oil will attract dust, sand. This oil has been used for centuries to preserve Nihonto (japanese swords), so u can't go wrong with it for storage. If need a lubricant for field use that doesn't attract foreign particles go for Mil-Tec.

greetz
 
DO NOT USE VASELINE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Someone told my older brother to about 20 years ago, he coated a bunch of Case knives with it and stored them, when he got them out to show them off later, ALL the blades and backsprings were spotted with rust and the bone and wood scales were stained really bad.
 
airyq.....
I could certainly be mistaken here (happens all the time at home...even if I'm not :D )....but I thought you were asking about using petroleum jelly as a preservative for handles/scales, not on the blade or as a lubricant/protection for the whole knife....for all the reasons stated above... :eek:

Anyway, Vaseline or that ilk, would be WAY down the list, for me, for this use.

If for some reason you can't get mineral oil (a common laxitve, as loki88 stated) at a RX store......I'd use A.G. Russell's suggestion of NEUTRAL shoe polish, with confidence.
I personally like mineral oil on stag or wood...neutral shoe polish on bone.

Maybe the best stuff is Renaissance wax.....but it is hard to find in some places...and MUCH more expensive, as well. But it is GOOD.

JMO.

Good luck on your quest.

Bill
 
renaissance wax is of course a VERY good product, depending on what u do with it. Any product that forms a barrier between steel molecules and oxidizers (air, water, additives) should only be used on superclean steel, or handles. U want the bare steel here. If u trap the oxidizing agent under the layer or coating it will still corrode the metal/handle away slowly. As with all products, whatever u use will get poluted after a lenghty period. On Stored knives/swords once a month removing the oil/wax and reoiling is recommended. What u could do is buy special bags designed for long term storage of firearms. These bags are airtight AND have a special coating inside the bag that will neutralize the corrosive agents inside the trapped air. I don't know the brand but a gunshop should have them for handguns. These will serve as well for conserving precious knives in a safe etc.
 
It sounds like your referring to silica gel packs, or canisters. They are okay, but you have to be careful with them. Once they are full you have to "re-activate" them in an oven to get rid of all the built up moisture. i never use them anymore, I only use a dehumidifier, empty it four times year (depending on the humidity of course).

loki, he is referring soley to handles, not blades.

The renaissance wax works well. Ive been using it steadily for three years now. Ive been making and collecting knives for well over 20+ years and ren. wax is the best thing going right now. Its completely safe. You can leave it on for much longer periods of time then conventional waxes, or pastes. Just like anything else though, you have to use common sense when using any product. You cannot coat it in wax and leave it out in the rain (but that's another subject).

The ren. wax works really well on wood, horn, bone, or stag.
 
I've had ren wax take the dye off some bone, so I stopped using it, except on the steel. Tony and Reese Bose use lemon oil on bone and stag, peanut oil on ivory. The oil from your skin is supposed to be good for ivory too. Tom Overeynder uses ren wax, and some other stuff, an ivory colored cream that he says lasts forever, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name or find the paper where I wrote it down.
 
Eddie, what kind of bone (knife brand handle color) did you use it on? Ive used it on everything from case, to queen, schrade, boker, kissing crane, henckels, linder, laguiole de l artisan, the knives I make, etc. etc. etc. and that's never happend

You do realize also though, that there are some dye lots with any brand, or make of knife that you put a little rubbing of a cloth, or even the acid from your fingers, and it can cause some of the dye to rub off some? Ive had it happen with some older schrade bone handles and some henckels before.

Even the bone I buy from kovals for knife making, Ive had some of the dye lots have that happen to. I use to buy black pretty steady and once I bought a lot that no matter what I did it rubbed off fairly easy. i finally had to seal it with wax to stop it from getting worse.

Ive also noticed that some dye lots get heavily soaked with dye and are not "adequately" dried and what ends up happening is that it "continually" rubs off for a long time before becoming stable. Any knid of bone used in cutlery making is going to rub off while its being worked though (different subject).
 
Its happened to three knives, one stag, two bone. All 3 were custom knives made by three different top custom makers who shall remain nameless. Wasn't their fault. I understand that dye can come off just from rubbing, but in these three cases the ren wax seemed to soften or loosen the dye. And we're talking about a small amount of dye. I let all 3 of them sit for a couple days and the dye stopped coming off. On two of the knives, the dye that came off did affect the appearance of the knife. Since they are knives I carry and use, it didn't bother me too much. If they were safe queens, I'd have been pretty upset. I've never had a similar problem using oil on handles.

I'm relatively new to all this compared to some of you, but it seems to me that with bone or stag, you are trying to prevent drying and shrinking. Something that soaks in, like an oil would seem to be more effective than something that coats the surface, like a wax.

Since there is less and less antique bone around, and even less good stag, this might become a bigger deal, as makers start to color the remaining stag, and jig and dye their own bone. I'm sticking with oil, and letting it soak in, then gently wiping off the excess.
 
I agree with rev_jch about the fact that some dye lots seem to "ooze" a bit of color, even for a long while. Example, I have a United/Boker (around 1990) strawberry bone whittler, still NIB, that seems to leave the strawberry bone coloring on my hands anytime I handle the knife. Maybe it never really cured/set it's color? This might be what some of us have experienced, regardless of what has been used to clean/protect the scales.
Just a theory, however.

Bill

P.S.
Eddie, I see how you got your screenname... :D

I will say again, that for me, I like mineral oil on wood or stag (sorry to anyone having trouble getting it.. :( ) and neutral shoe polish for bone. Oh yeah, nothing for pearl. Just handling (is that a play on the subject, or what ;) ) seems to be enough.
 
Eddie,
many knife manufacurers, makers, etc. will dye stag if the color is not quite appealing. This has been done for years. There is a new stag called "imi-stag" its been around for a few years now. I have bought it from kovals and used it on some walker locks in the past. Its bone jigged and dyed to look like stag, much like bone-stag. Its so close that you almost cannot tell the difference between it and real stag. This is true for most pices I ahve seen of it. I know the color tends to rub off this kind if you are not careful.

You also have to remember that most stag does not resemble the pretty handles made from it unless its a "round" (round handle), or you get lucky. Usually it has to be dyed to make a nice pretty piece. Then of course you have the pretty pieces that just seem to look good on their own.

I would suggest that you coat it with wax and "lightly" buff it. This should take care of the problem. You can also try baking it in the oven for a couple hours at about 125-150 degrees. That way you will not affect the temper of the blade, or burn the handle. Then you can coat it with wax when it is room temperature again.

Just be glad you do not work bone, horn, or stag!!! The smell is so bad down in the shop everyone gets run out of the house every time ;)
 
Can I ask why you guys put wax on your knife handles to start with? I just use a Tuff-Cloth to wipe down the blades and handles of all mine and have no rust problems. Is there any possible downside to using Tuff-Cloth on bone or wood handles? :confused:
 
TUF-CLOTH and TUF-GLIDE are great products. They have, in my opinion, more of a moisture "wicking" and anti-rust purpose. Ren wax, neutral shoe polish or mineral oil are what I use to "feed" a more porous material like bone/stag, and help keep it from drying out and possibly shrinking/cracking. Especially if it has pins in the scales. It also allows you to buff the scales and highlight them a bit as a final touch.
While I have no proof... since you can "refresh" a TUF-CLOTH with neutral grain spirits (as mentioned in the directions) as well as using TUF-GLIDE to refresh the cloth...and both of these evaporate quite quickly...that process concerns me as possibly pulling natural moisture from the scales. So I don't use those products on natural scale materials. JMO.

Bill
 
Tuf-glide would not be good for bone, or stag, due to the fact it contains 100% mineral spirits. The idea of wax is to help keep it from drying out and cracking. Its a porous material and humidity, temp, etc. affect it. It either expands, or shrinks. The difference is usually not noticed until its old, or the temp. changes are extreme. Otherwise you can look at a bone handle, as an example and see the vessel pores and see if they are cracking.
 
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