Wood handle treatment

C

cybrok

Joined
Aug 7, 2005
Messages
4,741
Hello.

I know a lot of you make an oil treatment on your wood handles. Do you think a similar treatment would be helpful on a bo (martial art staff weapon).

Thanks
 
O yes, timber likes oil! if deeply penertrating it adds weight & if hardening strength. all add greater resitance to moisture & aid long term stabilty to climatic changes., & they bring up the timbers colours.

Best timber grows full of oil. {lignum vitae, rosewood etc.}

What oil will you use?

Spiral
 
I don't know yet. I'll check what's available near.

What do you guys this is the best for a 6' staff? If I could only apply it instead to letting it in a bath for a long time.
 
Can't speak about martial arts' woods, but I use linseed oil on gunstocks, applied by finger tip, let sit and dry, give it time, wipe a bit, then a few days later, repeat.

Right now I've got a small jar of artist's boiled linseed oil, but I doubt it makes a difference. I just spotted this at a yard sale.

Have fun. Great smell.
 
Kis's process is good. I use Danish Oil. Only real difference is some drying agents in the mix.
 
from an article on muzzle loading:

seems applicable, i always oil my spear shafts & axe handles, etc.

R.D. Caswall said:
Ramrods were rarely spiral striped or stained dark, but in the old days they were quite often tempered to add strength. To temper your rods, scrape and sand them to the proper size, length, and taper your rifle requires. Get a piece of two- or three-inch plastic or steel pipe a few inches longer than your rod. Also get two pipe caps and affix one to your pipe end and make sure it's water tight. Put your rods in the tube, keep it upright and fill it with #1 fuel oil or kerosene. Keep the rods completely submerged and cap the tube. Now, set it aside for nine months to a year. The rods will come out tough, hard, and flexible. It's very difficult to snap one of these rods. My Great Grandpa Harmon Grove taught me this trick forty years ago when he was 96. He "tempered" his cleaning rods, hammer handles, axe handles, pick handles, and shovel handles. Tempering your ramrods adds to safety, as a broken ramrod can easily pierce flesh. The best reason for the tempered ramrod is the near elimination of field breakage. Be sure to use only straight-grained hickory with no grain "run-out"; split wood is better than sawn.

Kerosene is a "modern" product, so if you want to temper your ramrod with a 1780 product, use 1/2 to 2/3 turpentine with the balance (1/2 to 1/3) of linseed oil. Soak for about a year. In either case, kerosene or linseed oil, keep the ramrod ends exposed to the liquid as 90% of the absorption of the "liquid" will be through the exposed ends via capillary action. It should be noted that some claim kerosene has a tendency to promote rot in wood. I have no idea how long this takes as I've never viewed it - five years, ten years, more? Enough said on tempering.
Click to expand...
 
Tung oil gives a really nice finish. We just finished a huge whaling knife with a 3 foot walnut handle with two coats of Tung Oil. With just two coats, it brings out the grain, gives a sheen and is non-slip.
 
I wonder if one could temper wooden arrow shafts in the same fashion? MMMMMM some experimentation needed !
 
kronckew said:
from an article on muzzle loading:

seems applicable, i always oil my spear shafts & axe handles, etc.
Click to expand...

Two of my muzzleloaders have ramrods "tempered" using this method. However the time period was shortened to about 4 months with one by placing the pipe, with 1/2 & 1/2 linseed oil/turpentine mix, behind the woodstove, for the winter. The other was placed in the steel storage shed for about 9 months. I can only tell the difference between the two because they are for two different calibers, .50 and .58. (My .54 has a fiberglass rod)
Should work for a bo, just need a pipe with caps that it will fit into. It will almost double the weight of the wood, but it will probably never break.

Bill
 
Wow, I've never heard of tempering wood like this. I have spears, axes, jo's, bo's, and escrima sticks that may all benefit from this.

Thanks
 
I'm bored... check back with me in a year. ;)
I have a spare bo sitting around. I want to check this out. I may also throw in a white oak Bokken I have. I will run down to Home Depot tomorrow and see what I can pick up.

BTW I think it is boiled linseed oil that rots wood. It takes 50-60 years, from what I understand, but it gradually turns acidic and eats the wood.

It reminds me of some french starving artists in the late 1800's and early 1900's. All they had to paint on was cardboard. They would spend their lives buying paint with money they begged for, eat other peoples trash, then paint a masterpiece and sell it for money to buy paint (cheap). These cardboard masterpieces are rotting from beneth their paint and nobody knows what to do about it as that any chemicals that would harden the cardboard would destroy the pigments in the paint.

Moral of the story: If you build a masterpiece use quality materials.

I still think I will use linseed oil though.
 
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