Dyed a couple today (bone & stag)

[sunknife]

Thought I'd show the results of a couple knives I dyed today. The S&M white jigged bone had a pale yellowish color to it which I wasn't crazy about.
The RR whittler had stag scales that were just plain boring looking to me.
Sooooo..... I put 'em in a small pan on their sides, added enough water to cover them and slowly heated the water to a steady simmer. I continued to simmer them for 15 minutes then poured the simmering water into a coffee mug and quickly added about an ounce of RIT 'dark brown' dye and about a half teaspoon of salt to the water, stirred and quickly put the knives into the mix. I left them in the dye bath for about fifteen minutes, then removed the knives with tongs onto a paper towel and wiped the blades, bolsters and liners until clean. Rubbed down the newly dyed bone and antler handles with some mineral oil and beeswax and presto, done. The whole process took less than an hour including set up and clean up.
You can do this and be done while the wife runs a few errands and she'll never know what you were up to in her kitchen.

[bighomer]

Thats outstanding good job.

[XX Case XX]

Those turned out pretty good. Very nice.

____________
Mike

[sunknife]

Thanks fellas. I'm pleased with the alterations and now I imagine I carry these two more often.

[SolWarrior]

Wow. Nice job there, Sunknife. They look much better.

[Landersknives]

Wow nice .... very nice. Great job. Muahhh now to get the wife out of the house for a while.

[Mountain Man Knives]

Those turned out really nice, nice work and thanks for sharing your recipe with all of us ~

[bladebuddy]

Wow what a difference! They have a much more vintage look to them. And it was as easy as that. Great job!!

[Treejakal]

They look fantastic! Have you ever tried any other colors or color mixes, i.e. a little red with the dark brown?

[sunknife]

Thanks again for the comments guys. Treejakal, no brown is all I've used so far.
Dyed another one this morning, this one was an electric orange color that didn't appeal to me. This time I only left it soaking in the dye for a few minutes before removing and wiping clean. I'm much happier with the look of the knife now. The first pic is before dying and really doesn't show just how bright the orange was but it was bright, almost blindingly so. I did wipe it with alcohol first and lightly sanded the bone with 600 grit sandpaper
prior to dying to help the dye penetrate, cheap knife so not concerned if experiment were to fail.
I want to state that I did not come up with this dying method myself, lifted the info from the net.
Here are the results;

[rea1eye]

Nice job on all the knives. Now you have knives which are unique to you and will carry with pride.

Bob

[sunknife]

Dyed a couple more today. Forgot to take before pics but these 2 stock knives were natural, (white), bone prior to the dye bath. Used the RIT dark brown dye that I had on hand for both. The lighter colored one soaked for about 5 minutes and the darker one about 20. To me the lighter has a sort of appaloosa bone look to it now and the darker one kinda a grey bone appearance.
I'm pleased enough with the results of this experiment and it gave me something to tinker with on a Sunday. Next time I wanna try some different colors.

[sunknife]

Here's a close up pic.

[#goldpan]

Those are amazing! Good work and thanks for sharing!

[sunknife]

Thanks goldpan. If I bought only good looking knives I wouldn't be doing this but sometimes they look better in the pictures than they do when they arrive in the mail and you have them in hand. I have to admit though that it is kinda fun seeing what you can come up with when dying them so I'll probably buy a few more ugly ones to play with.

[garddogg56]

Nice job sunknife Did you take the scales off the knife to dye them??

[sunknife]

Thanks Garddogg. No the scales aren't taken off, the knives stay intact for the whole process. Once they come out of the dye I simply wipe the blades, bolsters and liners clean with a paper towel as they cool down. After they are cooled I wipe 'em down with some oil and rub some beeswax on the bone.

[garddogg56]

Thanx Sunknife