A couple of very special YCS.

We've got a couple of sandalwood sculptures at home, so I'll try to compare it to the wonderful YCS handle. Yesterday we were out at a crafts expo and a vendor was selling some other kind of wood in the same style as the sculptues we have, but it didn't have the fragrance. Looked just the same, only cheaper. Could be particle-board sculptures for all I know, only thing I know about wood is what looks and works well when it is in its final product.

I've seen some hay bale houses that looked pretty good, very easy to make as well as long as you don't expect anything fancy. Excellent insulation values too. But my dream home is something in a monolithic dome: www.monolithicdome.com
Everything seems made of concrete here in India, but I don't trust a lick of it, poorly laid and who knows how much rebar is in there...
 
I finally got the YCSi (YCS - Improved) today, I was all antsy yesterday since the PO was closed.

This knife is awesome, from the first time I touched it. It is a dream in steel. There is nothing else that needs to be said.

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Okay okay I just can't shut up about it. I had a Sanu YCS from about 6 months ago, I liked it alot but it just wasn't perfect. That blade has quite a few waves that detracted from the aesthetic. The balance was good, more together than the average AK, but still biased towards chopping. I wondered about a chiruwa version making the balance still more even, and know I know... This Sher YCSi feels like an extension of my hand, bites very deep. Not a single waver in the blade. If this blade has the recent chiruwa heat-treating glitch, I will scream and cry and give up knives forever.

The handle wood is not sandalwood as far as I can tell, or at least all the sandalwood I have around the house is a light blond color with very little grain visible. The YCSi handle is a very dark brown (not just the polishing medium, either) and fairly coarse grained wood. Certainly striking, and very different from the regular HI wood. I have two small wood sculptures which appear to be the same trype of dark wood, but I'm not sure where they are from. My Indian in-laws gave the sculptures to us, but I think they may have picked them up in Indonesia or Maylaysia on their way to the US last time. The sculptures seem very heavy for their size (high density), while I can't really tell if the YCSi handle slabs are heavier than usual. Interestingly, unlike the set shown in Uncle Bill's pic, the large karda is made of saatisal, while the smaller one has the new wood.

Anyways, I am smiling from ear to ear and the knife has not left my hand or my lap since I got home. Somehow it will reveal its special name, I'm sure. I just hope I'm worthy for the knife to accept me as its owner :)
 
^^^

mPisi got one of them...who got the other one?

I'd love to hear more about the handle wood - my guess is some form of rosewood?
 
Originally posted by pendentive
^^^

mPisi got one of them...who got the other one?

I'd love to hear more about the handle wood - my guess is some form of rosewood?
Click to expand...


:) :) :) :)
 
Dale and mPisi

Time to fess up.

Please solve the wood mystery for me....I need to know!:(
 
Beyond my knowledge. Not saatisal, not sandalwood, unless it is some variant I haven't seen before. Good stuff though :D
 
"I" have "THE BEST" one of the few if not the only one made by Durba!!
Durba "still" made the best K I ever saw!!;)
jim(Saint):cool:
 
Dan.............I dunno:)

Glad you brought this back up. Dug the YCS out of my gun safe. Pretty dry. I had rubbed the handles down with half and half boiled linseed oil and paint thinner. Just did it again. Trying to smell a type of wood is nothing but linseed oil/thinner smell.

YCS handle is a dark rich reddish,dark blood red, with some strong grains and burls in. Almost like the grains you will see in the light oak or saatisal. You can't normally see the grain, until a new application of oil brings it out temporarily. Tru oil would probably really bring it out, but too many inlays for sanding down. Don't want to ruin the inlays. One karda and awl have the same wood. The other karda is light oak or saatisal.

Makes me think of a mahogony type in color.

AND THE MYSTERY CONTINUES.;)
 
Here are some pictures of the wood in question. The colors seem pretty true to the real thing I hope.
HANDLE1.jpg

This is the main chiruwa YCSi handle. As with lcs37, I have barely touched the thing except to drool on it.

HANDLE2.jpg

These are the two kardas. As you can see the larger one is the typical saatisal, while the smaller one is the darker wood.
 
Good pics mPsi !

Colors shown are pretty true to mine. Looking carefully, the grain appears to be tighter in mine, and the whole handle glossier. Probably due to the linseed oil mixture, applied several times. NM has been sooo dry, I have to schedule a more frequent oiling.

My inlays appear to bulge a bit in the center, but evenly match the wood around the edges. Somewhat rounded from edges to center.
 
Rosewood?

Sorta looks like the handle on a villager I gave away that was said to have a rosewood handle. No matter how I tried, I coudn't get tung oil to fill the grain and take a real polish. I think the wood had too much of it's own oils. Waxed OK though. My UBE has a handle of similar color with tighter grain and nice figure. I was eventually able to get that one to fill and polish but it was a long, long struggle. That UBE was from the time when the handles often were heavily coated with rouge, and I used some Murphy's soap on it. My guess is that carried some of surface oils deeper into the wood or lifted them out so the tung oil was able to work properly, but I of course don't really know.
 
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