New Central African knife, cleaning/maintenance advice?

[gp]

Originally Posted by wildwolberine

I want to be careful to avoid over cleaning. I could wipe the metal down with Ballistol but I’m unsure how to proceed with the wood.

often depends what the origine of the "dirty" condition is; simple dirt or deterioration of the wood by externl causes or poor storage...?

This one of mine was pretty bad and first I used some oil to soak off some stuff :
put if on metal and wood. Depending on the condition for a couple of hours or a day.
Softly clean it with a cotton cloth. as it was still not clean, I used the finest steelwool.

Hereby the result before and after :

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...7&postcount=37
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...0&postcount=40
http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showpo...1&postcount=41


But it's always in the eye of the beholder how far you want to go, but certainly some oil first would be of great help to see what needs to be done more or not.
certainly form a conservation point of view for your very nice knife