Skookum Carver, Deep Oil Treatment
My Skookum Carver came from Rod with Arctic Birch scales. From the feel and smell of it I am guessing Rod soaked the wood in Linseed oil. Looking back through my knives I have noticed a fairly small representation of natural wood scales. I have some stabilized wood, some varnished Scandis, but very few natural oiled wood scales. I decided to give the Skookum Carver a bit more oil. I have really liked the way my spoons have turned out using Flax seed oil, so decided to give the Skookum a soaking with it .then I got a better idea. (At least I hoped it was a better idea).
I covered the edge with a piece of split plastic tubing (from a Maynard Linder ulu) and place it in a heat sealable bag (Tilla bag .Foodsaver machine). I made the bag extra long. I added about 15 mL of flax oil to the pouch and then vacuum sealed the knife in the oil. The bag compressed right around the knife very tight and I could immediately see small bubbles of air coming out of the wood at the end grain and a bit later all over the surface of the wood.
I left this pouch rolled and upright to allow the oil to always be above the wood for 3.5 days. Daily I would work the little bubbles up the scales to the air gap above the oil .each day I could see that the oil level had declined. The small bubbles had slowed down greatly by day 3 and the pouch was loose on the knife, so I opened it up, added more oil and let the knife rest at atmospheric pressure for another day.
I then pulled it out and lightly sanded the scales with 400grit and more flax oil.
Before I treated it the knife weighed 116g, after it is 122g. So my deep treatment added 6g of oil. Quite a bit I think. The feel is great too.
Flax oil will cure in about 6 months time according to Sundvist.
My Skookum Carver came from Rod with Arctic Birch scales. From the feel and smell of it I am guessing Rod soaked the wood in Linseed oil. Looking back through my knives I have noticed a fairly small representation of natural wood scales. I have some stabilized wood, some varnished Scandis, but very few natural oiled wood scales. I decided to give the Skookum Carver a bit more oil. I have really liked the way my spoons have turned out using Flax seed oil, so decided to give the Skookum a soaking with it .then I got a better idea. (At least I hoped it was a better idea).
I covered the edge with a piece of split plastic tubing (from a Maynard Linder ulu) and place it in a heat sealable bag (Tilla bag .Foodsaver machine). I made the bag extra long. I added about 15 mL of flax oil to the pouch and then vacuum sealed the knife in the oil. The bag compressed right around the knife very tight and I could immediately see small bubbles of air coming out of the wood at the end grain and a bit later all over the surface of the wood.
I left this pouch rolled and upright to allow the oil to always be above the wood for 3.5 days. Daily I would work the little bubbles up the scales to the air gap above the oil .each day I could see that the oil level had declined. The small bubbles had slowed down greatly by day 3 and the pouch was loose on the knife, so I opened it up, added more oil and let the knife rest at atmospheric pressure for another day.
I then pulled it out and lightly sanded the scales with 400grit and more flax oil.
Before I treated it the knife weighed 116g, after it is 122g. So my deep treatment added 6g of oil. Quite a bit I think. The feel is great too.
Flax oil will cure in about 6 months time according to Sundvist.
