All About Pocket Knives

How best to clean/restore these black handles?

try rubbing them down with #0000 steel wool, then buffing them out by hand with your favorite metal paste, flitz or semichrome. It looks like surface oxidation which should be easy to remove

You might try wiping them down with Armor All.
It works on some handles.

Thanks fellers!
I'll report back on what I find out...

Good ole fashion WD40 works great as a cleaner for me.

Using just WD40, this 25OT when from this... To this... just used WD40.

Curious, are those covers made of some type of plastic? Or are they painted/enameled metal? If they're coated I'd be extremely careful because you're dealing with what amounts to old paint which can be removed if you're too aggressive or use the wrong chemicals on it.

If on the other hand they're some type of synthetic they may actually polish out. I am working on an old Schrade Uncle Henry presently which has a cover material known as "Staglon"...It is some type of synthetic material made to look like antler. These covers were dull and lifeless (almost "chalky" feeling) and I tried several less aggressive methods of bringing them back - Armor All, plastic polishing by hand, Brill-O type cleaning pads, etc. Nothing worked...

What finally removed the dullness and brought them to life was a process I use to remove scratches from acrylic watch crystals - They make a polishing compound under different trade names -mine is called Crystal Kleer. Using that with a good clean buff on a Baldor polishing motor, I was able to restore a nice finish to these covers. ****NOTE****: My polishing motor is a single speed (higher RPM), but if you don't have much experience polishing at higher speeds, I'd find a jeweler who has one with a dual speed setting and use lower RPMs as it will be just as effective, letting the compound do the work for you, and the lower RPMs will make it harder to accidentally "burn" the material by polishing too aggressively. I've got years of experience running my higher speed polisher and was able to still use it because I know exactly how much pressure to apply..Just be careful if using a high speed polisher.... Warnings aside, this process brought these synthetic stag covers out beautifully.

Good Luck !

All the suggestions above a great, so I won't try to top them. But I will add one .... blue jean denim ! Whenever I cut off a pair of Levis for shorts, I save the legs and cut out strips I can use to buff with. And on plastic handled knives like that, the denim will build up some heat, which in turn helps the buffing process.

That there is yer redneck tip of da week !

TennesseeTime wrote:Curious, are those covers made of some type of plastic? Or are they painted/enameled metal? If they're coated I'd be extremely careful because you're dealing with what amounts to old paint which can be removed if you're too aggressive or use the wrong chemicals on it.

If on the other hand they're some type of synthetic they may actually polish out. I am working on an old Schrade Uncle Henry presently which has a cover material known as "Staglon"...It is some type of synthetic material made to look like antler. These covers were dull and lifeless (almost "chalky" feeling) and I tried several less aggressive methods of bringing them back - Armor All, plastic polishing by hand, Brill-O type cleaning pads, etc. Nothing worked...

What finally removed the dullness and brought them to life was a process I use to remove scratches from acrylic watch crystals - They make a polishing compound under different trade names -mine is called Crystal Kleer. Using that with a good clean buff on a Baldor polishing motor, I was able to restore a nice finish to these covers. ****NOTE****: My polishing motor is a single speed (higher RPM), but if you don't have much experience polishing at higher speeds, I'd find a jeweler who has one with a dual speed setting and use lower RPMs as it will be just as effective, letting the compound do the work for you, and the lower RPMs will make it harder to accidentally "burn" the material by polishing too aggressively. I've got years of experience running my higher speed polisher and was able to still use it because I know exactly how much pressure to apply..Just be careful if using a high speed polisher.... Warnings aside, this process brought these synthetic stag covers out beautifully.

Good Luck !

the handles are delrin much like staglon or the sawcut old timer delrin posted earlier

Toejammer wrote:All the suggestions above a great, so I won't try to top them. But I will add one .... blue jean denim ! Whenever I cut off a pair of Levis for shorts, I save the legs and cut out strips I can use to buff with. And on plastic handled knives like that, the denim will build up some heat, which in turn helps the buffing process.

That there is yer redneck tip of da week !

I use denim strips to shoeshine stacked leather handles, puts nice shine on them without the risk of discoloring them from buffing compounds. cotton canvas works too

I got some denim.....good tips fellas. Thanks!