Need advice polishing wood handles with metal hardware

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Iron&Light

Member
Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the forum so please forgive me if this should be posted elsewhere.

I hand forge sporting knives using mainly traditional materials. I use a lot of local woods like walnut, maple, cherry and Osage orange for the handles. I have not stabilized them in a vacuum chamber as many people do with natural stuff, I just use solid woods and oil finishes. I like to keep the materials natural.

My question for all the makers out there is this; How do you keep the metal dust from your corby, bolster or tang from embedding in the wood grain when you are shaping or polishing a natural wood handle? Polishing is worse. Even if you use a white compound on the wheel, you end up getting grey metal dust from the exposed tang( or brass from bolster etc) in the compound and rubbing it deeply into the wood grain, where it can't be removed. Filling the grain seems like the answer, and I have tried to do that before the polish and after the shaping, but without a polymer filler like cactus juice, there is still enough space to totally discolor the wood grain.

I just turned a gorgeous bright yellow handle made of Osage orange into a streaky grey mess.

Any useful advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Cameron
 
If you notice, most experienced makers tend to stay away from light colored wood handles with too much hardware..... because the problem you are having is very difficult to overcome. If using "lots" of hardware, such as corby bolts, loveless bolts, etc, the trick is to use dark colored woods/handle materials. If you are using lighter colored woods/handle materials, minimize the hardware.... use something like 3/32" pins that are either nickel silver or stainless.... they do not show the "black stuff" nearly as bad as brass. Pretty much everything in knifemaking is a "give-n-take" situation..... in this case you give up the extra hardware to solve the handle "staining" issue on lighter colored woods. If your need use corbys or loveless bolts is more desireable, then you give up the lighter colored woods. Of course there are other ways around it, but none are simple, nor easy, hence the "give-n-take" explaination.

Another possible way is to finish/sand your handles completely down prior to any liquid/final finish being applied. Then, when/if you buff, do it on a "clean" wheel, with something like Pink No-Scratch compound which will also minmize the transfer.
 
I am working on a fixed blade hunter with light colored wood right now also and I am experiencing the same thing. Any other tricks to minimize transfer would be super helpful!
- J
 
Stabilized wood also helps a lot. The pores in the wood are impregnated with a polymeric stabilizing agent and significantly reduces the metal dust from collecting in the open grain of the wood.
 
I am no expert at this . . . but, try to keep as much of the pin material off of the handle material as you progress to a finished handle. It is an almost impossible task. As Ed C. pointed out - there is no perfect solution to this problem. You have to eventually shape and fit the pins and the handle material together to form the finished handle. Try your best to minimize the problem by thinking ahead and keeping the problem to a minimum to start with so you do not have to remove as much impregnated material from the finished handle.

1) Try to get the scales as close as possible to finished before putting the scales onto the knife. You can use wooden pins for pre-shaping the handle. Just be sure you can remove them after pre-sanding your handle material.
2) Trim your chosen pins to as close to finished length before putting into the knife. The less material you have to remove after final glue up, the better. This is much harder with corby bolts - okay, it is impossible.
3) Use clean/sharp belts for finish work on the handle. If it was a used belt you get deposits from the belt and the pins onto the handle material and you double the trouble. Try to avoid this if possible.
4) Hand sand as opposed to machine sand to keep from forcing the metal into the handle material as deeply and attempt to keep from spreading the little pieces of pin material all over the handle material.
5) I use compressed air, often. I try and keep the handle as free of metal debris as possible and use compressed air from my tank to do so. It is not perfect, but it helps. Get it off of the handle as quickly as possible so you do not force it into the wood and/or spread it all over the handle material.
6) As Ed C. pointed out, different pin material choices may help. So can the pin size. Smaller size means less material to remove. For me, the hardest to keep from making a mess of the handle is mosaic pins. Smaller solid pins are easier, in my opinion, to limit the problem.
7) With mosaic pins I often times put a drop or two of thin super glue on the mosaic pin before the final sand. It helps to keep the pin from putting the fine little flakes of metal on the finished handle. If I polish the handle, I may do this again just for good measure.

Just my thoughts, I hope this helps.

DeMo
 
Thanks to all who replied. It's a tough thing to overcome. All of the comments are things that make a little bit of a difference and when added up, can look pretty good. Of course, the dark woods really hide the mess the best. By minimizing the metal I sanded down and using new sharp belts, I was able to get the handle shaped pretty cleanly. It was the polish that I really blew it on. It kind of heartbreaking at that point, after the knife is 95% done, to discolor it so badly. I only polished for about one second on a small spot before I realized it was a mess, but at that point I had to do the whole thing so it would be even.

I did discover that by using synthetic steel wool to rub the oil finish on, you can lift and float some of the metal and polish out of the grain, much like the oil on a sharpening stone removes debris. While hand sanding produces less mess to rub in, it also tends to sand metal and wood unevenly, so you end up with raised pins/corbys. I've been trying to keep hand sanding to a minimum because of that problem.

I think the real answer is going to be stabilized wood, so those pores are full and can't except any crud. I just hate to add that pool of plastic to my natural materials. I'm going to play around with some hard wax fillers to see if I can make that work, after the shaping and before the polish. Maybe I can mask some areas too, like the transition between bolster and wood, which is where the problem seems to be the worst.

Are there any makers who have tried this will stabilized wood? I'd like to know if it actually works before I buy the vacuum tank.

Many thanks to all who shared some advice.
 
As others have said, stabilized wood "helps", it does NOT cure the problem. As Ed (and others) said, use of Nickel Silver or SS helps a lot. I usually have the handle sanded to 1200 grit at least, then polished with a 2,000 grit polishing paper before going to the buffing wheel. There you're just "touching" on wood with a clean cotton wheel. I try to buff around the pins as much as possible, then just "touch" the pin to bring it to a shine. With light colored wood, it takes a LOT of care..... and sometimes still not successful.

Ken H>
 
Yes Staiblized woods and darker woods along with woods that already have a swirl of matching dark spots in them like some Cal Buckeye cuts.

First I suggest you buy some stabilized woods that were done professionally like, Boss Dog here at the top of the page or Mark here from It's a burl sells.

Not all stabilized woods are created equal & while the home brew stabilization equipment has gotten seriously better in the past few years there will be a learning curve for you to get it all right on stabilization.

1) I only use Stainless Loveless/Corbys. Like Ed mentioned, yellow Brass is the worse! That's how black handles got so popular.:3:
2 ) always use fresh belts.
3) I look for professionally stabilized woods or have my woods done by them that will match or mask any smear over from the stainless hardware.
 
Good to know that the stabilized wood can still be a problem. Thanks for talking me down. I just had a sudden onset of tool fever. I'll try a few pieces of professionally stabilized stuff before I try to make my own.

Ken. You really sand those handles smooth! Do you use a belt grinder or sand by hand at a certain point? Also, what abrasive papers do you like for the job? I have found that the wet and dry papers that are super fine grit like you are talking about tend to lose dark material into the grain as well. Do you find AO papers at that grit? I have been using synthetic steel wool for the final sanding, since it doesn't lose much of itself in the grain. Not sure how it compares grit wise.

And Laurence, I had to laugh when I clicked on your rhino fingers. I looked down at my index finger and thumb and they look like a couple of old sweet potatoes. I think I'll be trying those out soon.
 
I use a belt grinder up to around 400, maybe 600 grit, depending belts I've got. It does take a NEW belt to grind wood - I use Klingspor 2x72 LS 312 j flex belts for this. Ed Caffrey has recommended belts and he's a good man to listen to. Rhynowet Redline is the sandpaper I use, then to finish the 3M 2,000 grit polishing paper seems to work pretty good.

Ken
 
What about putting a thin layer of thin CA glue on the wood at the 400 grit stage to fill the pores and then finishing?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
A thin layer of thin type CA is a help for most any wood, even stabilized woods. Give it a good coat to wet everything out really good. Stick back and let dry a while - it's NOT an instant dry. Then sand all the surface layer off, but hopefully leaving the pores filled. Sand 'n polish to a high luster and it looks good.

Ken H>
 
I modified a couple of corbys for this reason. I ground down the fat end to be far below the scales and then used a cut off wheel to make new grooves for the screw driver. I use a reamer for the holes in the tang and scales to get a precise fit so when I'm done sanding and I'm ready to glue and use full length corbys the scales match well. You still have to grind the corbies down flush and do some sanding but I cover the scales with tape when possible. This helps me limit the metal dust and it also makes shaping the scales easier because I'm not constantly sanding over the much harder corbies.
 
I like the idea of the CA glue. I have tried it on elk antler scales before, but I wasn't really confident in the durability of it once polished down really thin. I thought it might flake off. It sounds like Ken has had good luck with it. I may be underestimating it's holding power. I picked up some gunstock sealant as well that I'd like to try.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]The modified corbys should be useful too.[/FONT]

Ive got another Osage orange handle in process and a couple curly maple. I'll try the sealants and report back on the success/ failure.

thanks guys,
 
Hi Guys,

The CA looks really good and helped keep things much cleaner.

Ken, you mentioned a thin layer, then sanding to fill the grain. That's what I tried and it worked well.

Does CA hold up as a top coat? I'm sure it will stick in the pores and cracks, but I was wondering if it was a solid, non chipping material when used as a thin top layer.

Once you put the CA on, there is nothing else you can apply to the wood. Is it up to the job?

Thanks
 
Another tip for you on light colored woods is to use wood sandpaper. The white stuff! Avoid the black wet & dry papers.
 
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