Final finishing!

C

Custance Custom Cutlery

Active Member
I am constantly trying a better way to finish my knives. By finish I mean final poly on handle scales and final buff on bolsters and such, my difficulty is 1: keeping poly off of metal bolsters, 2: keeping metal dust from rubbing into wood scales when sanding for poly and in between coats, 3: not scratching bolsters when sanding poly in between coats and 4: not getting buffing rouge embedded into handle scales! Anyone.............
 
Personally, I favor painters tape and extra care. Also, for the longest time, I've been sealing the handle/ scales with a few coats of natural shellac prior applying the rest of the finish(for non-stabilized woods and some stabilized). Shellac aids other finishes in adhering better and offers another level of water resistance. Even if you change your mind after applying the shellac, you can clean it off easily with denatured alcohol once you've sanded and buffed.
 
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Non stabilized wood unless say an iron wood /or rose wood family can be very difficut to finish clean . I use 80% stabilized wood and finishing is easy. the other 20 % are rose woods or ironwood. Kellyw
 
Poly? I assume your talking about polyurethane? My suggestion is DON'T use "poly"....it creates more short and long term issues than is solves. Most of the "exotic" woods that don't required stabilizing need only a good coat of quality paste wax to finish them out, and for those woods that do warranty stabilizing, no coatings are necessary.
 
I use natural oil like linseed, olive or sesame to finish of the wood work a few coat will be sufficient to ensure a long lasting handle
 
Mr Caffrey, thank you for the reply. I am using native to the Eastern U.S. hardwoods, ie. black walnut, tiger maple, ash etc. what are your thoughts on finishing these woods?
 
My personal choice for those woods, is Tru-Oil.....(the stuff from Birchwood Casey that is made for gunstocks) It can be a long process to get it built up on the wood, but in my opinion it's well worth it.

I take the wood to 800-1200 grit, then make sure it's dust free (I blow it off with compressed air). Using a fingertip, I apply a fairly heavy coat of tru0oil, and let is soak in for about 2 mins. Then I wipe/dry the handle with a lint free cloth or one of the blue "shop towel" paper towels. Set it aside for at least two hours. Lightly buff it with #0000 steel wool, then repeat the process until you happy with the finish. Often times I will do 10-15 coats over a period of days.
 
I use pure tung oil more often than linseed oil. It doesn't build as high a gloss as true oil can without wax but has greater water/alcohol resistance and doesn't darken the wood or darken with time nearly as much. I also make my own oil based finishes with natural resins for some applications. The exception is on kitchen knife scales which are often submerged in hot soapy water, they get a seal coat of good marine varnish thinned to a wiping consistency in a satin/semi gloss finish.
 
thank you all for the advice, I am working on a bowie now and will be using tru oil if I can find it if not linseed oil which I have used before on hammer handles but never trusted to last, but I will now! Thanks all!
 
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