Oil Staining Bone Scales

Gentlemen,

For a time I would apply a light coat of oil to my razors after properly drying the blade and stropping it. One day I realized the oil had seeped into the bone scales for one of my razors and left a stain.

Pray tell, what's this?

Unless perhaps I was a touch too generous with the amount of the oil, I don't know.

I have not used oil ever since, although I would like to. Since my modest collection includes seven razors, each razor, therefore, rests a week before use. For that reason I want to resume using a light coat of Camellia Oil.

Any thoughts, gentlemen?

Regards,

Obie

If it can seep, you used too much oil. The idea is to have a thin film of oil, if it beads you need to wipe it clean and start over with less oil.

One drop per blade should be enough... for a katana, I use a couple of drops on a tissue. If you keep the tissue in a small airtight box, you can even reuse that drop until the paper gets dry.

Renaissance wax. No oil needed. Renaissance wax is a crystal wax unlike a yellow paste wax, it dries hard as a rock. You can also use carnuba wax which is what I use most of the time. It will wash off with the detergent and hot water. I just give the blades a polish with MAAS every few months and a fresh coat of carnuba wax. Been using a past wax on my clays gun (and others) for years, never had a rust problem and dont have a slick gun when shooting.

Just make sure your blades are good and dry. I will wipe them off to get the soap residue off, then run them under hot water, just hot water. The blade gets quite warm, wipe it off with a dry towel, leave it open and set it on a table, then clean your brush, face, etc... Any residual water on the hot blade will evaporate in seconds. Got 30 or 40 razors in the rotation, never had any problem with staining or rusting and never used any oil.

Hi Obie,

One trick I have used for the forestocks of shotguns (which often have oil soak into the wood) is to wrap the forestock in a cloth and put it on a warm (not hot) radiator overnight. By morning the oil has seeped out of the grain of the wood and onto the cloth.

You could try a similar idea with the scales of that razor perhaps? If you had the radiator on a very low heat and wrapped the scales in tissue that might work. You would just have to make sure that you wrapped the blade in a cloth and that no one might knock it off mid process!

Best,

Stuart

About 2 years ago I made the mistake of oiling the pivot pins on some of my razors . one had bone scales , and it stained the scales . The stain has faded a bit over time , but it's still there . That was the first and last time I put any oil on my razors . I keep them clean and dry , and that works for me .

When I got this one it had stains like someone dribbled iodine on it. Could that be the same as an oil stain? I haven't gotten any stains from oil yet but these ones sure don't want to go away.

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Originally Posted by DwarvenChef

When I got this one it had stains like someone dribbled iodine on it. Could that be the same as an oil stain? I haven't gotten any stains from oil yet but these ones sure don't want to go away.

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I would think so . Bone is porous so I suppose any liquid will stain it . I used mineral oil , and aside from the staining the scales are fine .