A lot of people seem to think that the stabilized wood on high-end mods does not require any kind of maintenance. Is this fact or myth? I’ve done some research into the subject and found a lot of people actually talking about it on a forum about high-end knifes with stabilized wood handles. On the forum, people recommended using mineral oil to darken and bring out far richer colors in the wood and then sealing it with Renaissance Wax. So if the knife guys do it, should we be doing it? I got in contact with Tomasz of Loud Cloud Creations, as I remember he had posted up a comment regarding using mineral oil to bring out some colors of the Mellody Box. Indeed, his method matched the method described on the knife forum.
I ordered some mineral oil and renaissance wax and tested it on my Mellody Box first. Indeed, the colors of the Mellody Box began to darken and some of the subtle colors became more vibrant. I decided to grab my X-One and produce this guide for you guys.
Materials Needed (with links):
- Mineral Oil. I used a food grade butcher-block mineral oil from John Taylor, used for cleaning cutting boards.
- Renaissance Wax. This wax seems to be the most widely recommended by modders.
- Microfiber towel. I also used a glasses cleaner for buffing as well (not pictured)
- Masking tape. I removed the wood sleeve from my X-One, but if that isn’t an option use the masking tape to mask off metal parts of your mod while oiling and waxing.
Here’s a picture of my mod prior to the treatment for reference.
The first thing you should do is mask off all non-wood parts of the mod. If you can remove the entire wood sleeve from the mod then that’s even better. For this guide, I’m going to mask off one part of the wood on my mod so that you guys can see the difference side by side. Do NOT apply tape to the wood portions of your mod as this could possibly lead to the tape pulling some of the dyes from your wood.
The next step is to use the microfiber towel to liberally apply a coat of mineral oil to the wood. You want to really cover the wood with excess mineral oil to let it soak in. You’re going to let it sit and absorb the oil for 20 minutes.
Once the 20 minutes is up, use a microfiber towel to buff the wood until all the excess oil is removed.
I repeated this process three times, as that was recommended on the bottle of mineral oil I got. If your bottle of mineral oil tells you to apply a different amount of times, just go ahead and follow that!
After three applications of mineral oil, my X-One’s wood was significantly darker. To me, some of the more subtle details of the wood came out, which was what I was aiming for.
The next step in the process is to seal the oil that has now soaked into your wood. For this process, we are going to use Renaissance Wax. Use a microfiber to spread a layer of wax onto your wood similar to how we applied the mineral oil. You want to apply it thick, and let it set for 10 minutes.
Once your 10 minutes is up, just buff the wood until all excess wax has disappeared.
After removing the tape, the difference is obvious. I got a much darker green with the grain much more defined.
I achieved the result that I wanted. The wood is darker and feels much smoother to the touch. The lines and grains of the wood became much more defined. Overall I’m pretty happy with how the treatment turned out.
I hope you guys found this guide useful! It better have because as of writing this, I still haven’t been able to make my X-One look even all the way around. Hahahahaha…damnit.
Once again, below is the list materials used (with links):
- Mineral Oil. I used a food grade butcher-block mineral oil from John Taylor, used for cleaning cutting boards.
- Renaissance Wax. This wax seems to be the most widely recommended by modders.
- Microfiber towel. I also used a glasses cleaner for buffing as well (not pictured)
- Masking tape. I removed the wood sleeve from my X-One, but if that isn’t an option use the masking tape to mask off metal parts of your mod while oiling and waxing.