All About Pocket Knives

Well, this is what I broke out of the jars this morning - ONE of them anyway. It should darken a lot as it dries.

The shiney specks are pieces of glass. BUT NO RED IS GOOD!

In the center picture you can see how dark it is along the bottom, the whole thing should dry that way. They've lost about 50% of their weight but have a long way to go before stabilization. They sill feel heavy.

I should take pictures of the others. I have blue Birdseye maple and yellow spalted maple also. This is the first batch.

Don't drop that one in the tall grass...

They look good for certain.

Bill

El Lobo wrote:Don't drop that one in the tall grass...

They look good for certain.

Bill

That's for sure, it wasn't my idea - I just had to figure out how to do it. YES, the color goes all the way through! I cut one in half and dye was running out of it. Anyhow the last 4 jars are in the chamber now. They say 28.3 inches of mercury or about 13 PSI of negative pressure or vacuum is the most you can get. I used a cheap venturi type device (for refrigeration) from Harbor Freight ($17.00) at 120 psi on the compressor and got it down to 28 inches. What I did was to heat a large plate and heated the dye and plate to 210 degrees F inside the chamber. So when I pulled the vacuum to about 13psi at over 200 degrees F inside the chamber I had well over 33 inches of Hg or nearly 17 psi of vacuum or negative pressure ONCE everything had cooled. They told me it couldn't be done without spending $1000's of dollars of specialized vacuum equipment. Well, my cost was $17 and $8 worth of parts. They made the venturi device for R12, R22 and R134 refrigerants and they have secial fittings for refrigeration (supposed to be certified for the R12 and R22 - Freon). Well, I just changed them or modified them to take standard fittings and hose barbs.

Remember Grandma's canning (actually Mom's), well it starts hot and creates a small vacuum as it cools. That's how I got the extra 4 psi of vacuum "that couldn't be done". A real simple solution and that's all I did.

ok..i still don't understand a thing about how you did it...but the outcome is great...
i have to admit od green is not my color...been there done that.

Well if the tank were empty and I wanted this to dry fast AND crack I could put it in an empty jar and the vacuum would suck the moisture out and it would dry quicly. Pressure could do the same thing.


The other aspect, what I did was to put the wood in a jar of liqiud dye and pull a vacuum. The piece of wood now acts just like the wick of a candle. The vacuum sucks the dye up into the wood. The wood is like a straw because there is nowhere else for the dye to go. Now if you are thinking of super high vacuum then water based dye will vaporize in both cases. Getting to -16 or -17 psi is quite high for a home environment.

I have used super high vacuum in industry, where an atom within a small contained environment would need to travel several miles before colliding with another atom - in therory. I am a long way from there however,.

ok..i believe i have a grasp now..thanks hukk...and the wood is impressive...thanks again.

Well, here are a few more colors, I am making some modifications to the tank before I do some more.


FIRST PICTURE: Brown on the left, NATURAL in the center and Yellow on the right.
SECOND PICTURE: Brown on the left, NATURAL in the center and Yellow on the right, African Fiddleback Movingui - Green across.
THIRD PICTURE: Blue and Brown Tiger Curl Maple


Ooops, I forgot to take a picture of the black - customer order, I'll do that tomorrow.

HERE's the Black "Tiger Curl Maple" and the black goes all the way through a 1 inch piece of hard Maple. The yellow in the previous post easily penetrated 1.5 inches of wood, a soft Maple.

I really like that OD green - very unique.

Thanks, I buy the wood dye at K&G and by their instuctions 1 oz. to the gallon is quite bright. I tried and indeed it is. So this green is a combination of 3 cc's blue, 3 cc's of yellow. I used an online calculator (gotta love em) to figure that 29.5 cc's is an oz so I figure on 7 cc's for a quart and I toned it down to 6 cc's for a quart. I have some that I mixed red and brown, but I need to revisit that one. I used 2 cc's red and 4 of brown, seems all I need is 5:1 to make it look better.

I am starting to wonder if food dye will work. After I remove the wood from the bottle (unless I have to smash it ) mildew will grow in the remaining dye, must mean sugar is present. Of course wood has sugar in it, xylose. I guess I have better things to think on.

Hukk, your wood dying is impressive,, could you do bone in a similar way?

Thanks MM, I don't know if bone can be done the same way. I have heard of boiling bone with Ritz Dye to color it. Hmmmn, I wonder if the ritz dye would work on wood? DANG, you know I'm gonna try that now. Sure ups the available colors, Thanks for the idea, strange how that works. If Ritz works on bone, should work on wood

For bone they use Potassium Permanganate also, though I don't know where to gt it.

I was thinking for colors other than brown/tan/black, like red (old case red ) blue, green ect.

Red and Blue may be easy, I will try some --within a couple weeks. I may reserch dyes just because it's supposed to be for wood or fabric doesn't mean that there may be someting else out there that may work better. What aboutthat betadine (sp I'm guessing) or Iodine or bluing (laundry) and the cold bluing for guns (Super Blue) or that stuff for sheet metal layout dykem that comes in red or blue. For bone how about alcohol or water based red or blue dye?

Just a few ideas to try, dykem in red or blue sounds good, if they still make both.

Red or blue leather dye also sounds good.

i would bet under vacuum any colorant will be successful on any porous surface, to some degree.

muskrat man wrote:I was thinking for colors other than brown/tan/black, like red (old case red ) blue, green ect.

Hey MM, I have been Googling Bone Dye and a couple stand out, ONE made for bone may not be available. There is another one used in basketry that goes all the way through the materials that may be of interst also. Seems red and green is real doable as is a "natural dye" for a goldenrod and yellow color. I must admit I am a sucker for a goldenrod wormgroove. I will make some phone calls in a day or so. I have some camel bone laying around the shop somewhere. Guess I can leave it non-jigged. At this point my interest would be twofold. ONE, does it penetrate fully and TWO does it rub off.