Part 3 - Surface treatment and polishTo get a nice shiny surface there are a few ways to do it. For wooden handles I usually go with soaking in linseed oil for about 3 day with pauses for polish, then finish it off with bee's wax to get a good surface. Micarta is a bit different in that it wont really take color from oil, but we do need to fill up pores etc to give it a nice shine. I'm using a 2-component polish called CCL knife oil, which is basically linseed oil + turpentine in one bottle and another with liquid shellac. Shellac is secreted from bugs like this:
its used for lacquering furniture, and for these (enjoy, your candy is secreted from bugs):
anyways, here is the packet if someone wants to do this themselves one day:
To get a good surface will take some time. First you apply shellac to the handle. Rub it in with a cloth so it gets into all the pores and seals them. then let it harden and dry up for about 30-45min (longer is ok too). After that apply some linseed oil and sand the handle using 1200 grit paper. The oil makes it smoother and reduces wear. Do this about 3 times. handle should now have gotten some real depth, but isnt perfect. Now we switch to full polishing and skip the sanding:
Take a new cloth (the old one will be all solid from the shellac) and pour on shellac with a couple of drops of oil mixed in. Rub this into the handle and as it hardens you speed up and make your touch lighter so the cloth doesnt stick. then wait 10min and do it again. Repeat about 4 times.
Handle will now look boss as fuck:
Getting the colors to show up properly in a photo is pretty much impossible when shooting inside. I will get an outside pic once the knife is done (it shifts between a deep green and brown/burgundy sort of color depending on the angle of the light).
Left to do on the handle is to take a fluffy buffer on my power drill and work over it to make surface even better, but cant do that tonight as it is late and my neighbors would kill me.
After this I am going to prep the blade and start thinking about the sheath.