- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 2,737
Don't ask me why I did this--all I know is that it worked great the one time I tried it last night.
Background: OK, the flare of the pommel exposes a lot of endgrain on a wooden handle. Often the deep pores contain a lot of greyish-black dirt that must be prevalent in the shop--soot, ash, grinding dust, charcoal, etc. I'm currently working on a Chitlangi handle, which has an even more pronounced flare at the pommel, and hence even more "dirty" end grain than usual. It's been sanded down with 120 grit wood sandpaper, and given three or four coats of tung oil, using 400 grit wet/dry paper between.
What I did: For some reason, after the last sanding, I decided to really slather on a bunch of Howard Orange Oil furniature polish. It comes in a bottle with a spray pump. I highly reccommend the products of theis company--they cost more, but they seem to use top quality ingredients with no cheap synthetic fillers. In this case the product seems to be just citrus oil (technical grade limonene) and some petroleum spirits. Anyway, after I put a bunch of the stuff on, and I mean a lot, I let the handle stand for a feww minutes. Then I thought I'd gently heat the handle over an open gas flame on my stove to see how much would soak in. I was very careful, but just the same I recommend that anybody who wants to try this, use something like a hairdryer for safety. I heated it until the lower-boiling petroleum spirits just started to boil, and make bubbles in the viscous liquid coating the blade. The buttcap got fairly warm, just hot enought to still be able touch it for several seconds--kinda the temperature that you'd serve soup to that relative that always sends it back in restaurants because its's too cold.
What hadppened: The stuff that had soaked into the wood "sweated out a huge amount of the grime that was embedded in the wood! After removing the grey stuff with a paper towel, and repeating, that part of the handle lookes much brighter. There are some open pores in the wood, but they should fill with oil and sanding. This definately didn't "raise the grain"...but I guess you could say that it lowers it. There's no rouge left on this handle, but I suspect that it would sweat up in the same fashion. Just be careful to move the handle while heating and don't let it get too hot. Also, I'd only try it on a handle that had acclimated to the local humidity for a few weeks, and had been "nourished" with some kind of dressing, like tung or linseed oil. Craked or dry wood may note respond well, and cracks may expand .
Background: OK, the flare of the pommel exposes a lot of endgrain on a wooden handle. Often the deep pores contain a lot of greyish-black dirt that must be prevalent in the shop--soot, ash, grinding dust, charcoal, etc. I'm currently working on a Chitlangi handle, which has an even more pronounced flare at the pommel, and hence even more "dirty" end grain than usual. It's been sanded down with 120 grit wood sandpaper, and given three or four coats of tung oil, using 400 grit wet/dry paper between.
What I did: For some reason, after the last sanding, I decided to really slather on a bunch of Howard Orange Oil furniature polish. It comes in a bottle with a spray pump. I highly reccommend the products of theis company--they cost more, but they seem to use top quality ingredients with no cheap synthetic fillers. In this case the product seems to be just citrus oil (technical grade limonene) and some petroleum spirits. Anyway, after I put a bunch of the stuff on, and I mean a lot, I let the handle stand for a feww minutes. Then I thought I'd gently heat the handle over an open gas flame on my stove to see how much would soak in. I was very careful, but just the same I recommend that anybody who wants to try this, use something like a hairdryer for safety. I heated it until the lower-boiling petroleum spirits just started to boil, and make bubbles in the viscous liquid coating the blade. The buttcap got fairly warm, just hot enought to still be able touch it for several seconds--kinda the temperature that you'd serve soup to that relative that always sends it back in restaurants because its's too cold.
What hadppened: The stuff that had soaked into the wood "sweated out a huge amount of the grime that was embedded in the wood! After removing the grey stuff with a paper towel, and repeating, that part of the handle lookes much brighter. There are some open pores in the wood, but they should fill with oil and sanding. This definately didn't "raise the grain"...but I guess you could say that it lowers it. There's no rouge left on this handle, but I suspect that it would sweat up in the same fashion. Just be careful to move the handle while heating and don't let it get too hot. Also, I'd only try it on a handle that had acclimated to the local humidity for a few weeks, and had been "nourished" with some kind of dressing, like tung or linseed oil. Craked or dry wood may note respond well, and cracks may expand .