What blade did you EDC today?

2.82" blade.

Not terribly small, though I prefer larger knives as well.

Dyeing the scales sounds like a great idea.

What color are you going to dye it?

I’m trying a mix, dark blue with some red to make it slightly purple-ish. I hope. If it turns out ok I’ll make a pic afterwards.

Next time when you try something like this get a torch or at least a lighter and heat up the area you want to bend until it’s getting bronze at least.
If you’re lucky it should not break.

Well, that went different than planned. Recipe: 20ml racing red, 20ml dark navy mixed in 500ml almost boiling water in a small pan with a few drops of dish washing liquid added. The scales went purple alright but I left them in too long and now they are very very dark purple, black in anything but daylight. Still looks good though…

I’ve seen some hair dye jobs go that way, lol.

It might lighten up over time and with abrasion to look a lot better than it does now

Not bad looking but I kinda rathered the look with white scales.

I think it’s a definite improvement.

Dark colors like blue can overpower lighter colors like red, so maybe half as much blue next time….? Not that I have any experience doing what you just did.

I currently rotate these two. Para 3 LW melts into my pocket and is more ‘public friendly’ being blacked out. The R2D2 is a sturdy work horse that is a 1/4 of the price for around the farm. They both get a good workout though. Sometimes I feel like the LW might be a tad fragile but I haven’t had any real issues with it, took it apart, cleaned it and applied some KPL the other day runs smooth.

I do work my knives a bit living on a farm and working for a construction business. My next mission is to learn to use the ceramic rod and edge pro clone I got off eBay to sharpen them. :cry:

Pocket Rotation

@lazereagle, I gave my experiences with the edge pro clone here. What knife do you have on order? - #531 by moderator007
The stones make all the diffence. I always thought edge pro was charging ridiculous prices until I started using and looking at the stones.

Hey that’s pretty much the sharpening system I got. Have had a bit of a look for replacement stones but being in Australia options are low and prices are extortionate, if I find a good value set maybe I will just order from US in the end and cop the 30USD postage. The other thing I’ve looked at is the ‘small knife’ attachment, I see a few videos on youtube using this for 3” pocket knives and it seems sensible, another case of stickershock there though, I’m considering making my own rectangular thing with a hole in it for a fraction of the cost.

At this stage I think I’ll flatten the stones that came with it on some sandpaper and a flat surface then man up and start working on some old kitchen knives first. Then hopefully progress to fishing, hunting and EDC lol. (tl;dr sharpening good pocket knives is scary, I tried sharpening years ago with a basic stone and failed miserably, have done enough youtube research about angles, apexing and burrs, now I just need to eat cement).

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Well, that went different than planned. Recipe: 20ml racing red, 20ml dark navy mixed in 500ml almost boiling water in a small pan with a few drops of dish washing liquid added. The scales went purple alright but I left them in too long and now they are very very dark purple, black in anything but daylight. Still looks good though…

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I went with purple Rit Dye More. I poured very little dye into the pot with some white vinegar, and several drops of Ajax dish soap. Brought the pot to a low roll boil and dipped the scales in for fifteen seconds and pulled them out to check color. It was perfect at fifteen seconds for the shade I wanted. I still wanted the translucent effect from the original natural jade color.

Original jade

New purple



I like that…are you going to carry it?

Thank you!

I dyed the scales this morning, and I have been carrying it all day. And since I LOVE the action on this knife, and I am extremely happy with the dye job, I will be carrying it a lot.

That actually looks quite nice! Still kept the semi-translucent effect. So you exposed the scales to about 15 secs of boiling hot water with the purple dye?

Thank you! Yes, for fifteen seconds.

Once the water with the dye starts to boil, I dip the scales in. The trick is to not use too much dye, and to check the scales initially at about ten to fifteen seconds to get an idea of how dark the dye is. I was super happy at initial check, so I stopped there.

I showed my neighbor and he wants to buy the knife from me, LOL.

Both those dye jobs look absolutely phenomenal IMO. I know the Bugout probably looks darker in person but there’s could be a fun element to it changing color a bit under bright light or sunlight.

This is awesome. It looks like a translucent lavender.

After you dip the scales, do you rinse or wash them? If so, how long after you dip them?

Thank you! A lovely lavender, yes, yes, yes. I didn’t think of that. I’m so happy I was able to keep the translucent effect.

After I dip the scales I place them in the freezer for ten minutes. After that I rinse them off under cool water. Then I wipe them down with a cotton pad and isopropyl alcohol. Zero color bleed.

I always follow these steps since that’s how I was told to do it by a member on an EDC knife forum a long while back. Some members on that forum said all those steps weren’t necessary, but it worked perfectly for me, so I just do it.

So we were RIT dying :slight_smile:
I died the scales of my Civivi Elementum with micarta scales. It was a middle brown colour (have a before-picture somewhere) and I dyed it, very short this time, I learn :neutral_face: , with RIT Dye More in racing red. The bright red on the brown gave this lovely tint (colour corrected picture, so pretty right).