Black Walnut ?

There are much prettier woods for knife handles. I make pistol grips with it and have learned to hate it because of the dust.
 
You should let it cure for awhile first. It is durable if thats what you are wondering.
Great for gun stocks, but unless it's burl I don't find it to be the most exciting wood for a knife handle. Do be aware the dust is very allergenic.
 
Black walnut, either curly or burl is my favorite wood.

Fresh cut is not good, like said, it needs to dry for a year or more.
 
Do you have access to the whole tree? If so look at the wood around crotches and or the stump and roots and you should be able to find some curly stuff.

I am very fond of black walnut but I supose its not as "exotic" as some other woods. Good luck.
 
it will dry fairly quickly if you cut it into knife handle blocks instead of leaving it in it's full form; should be minimal warping in smaller pieces like that. I love burl and curly walnut, but for a knife handle regular walnut is too plain for me. I do use it often in woodworking projects though!
 
Walnut is a fairly wet wood. It takes a long time to dry to the percentage you need for knife handle ( 7-10%). I would say at least two years, depending on the drying conditions and flitch size. It checks badly. I disagree with Ray on the point about sawing it into handle size blocks. They would crack to uselessness, IMHO. Keep it fairly big, 3" slabs, and coat the ends as soon as it is cut.
Stacy
 
When working with handle size blocks for either stck tangs or scales I've cut them just oversize and then microwave for like only a min. at a time (or you will start a fire inside the wood) to check for total dry put in a ziploc for the last cycle- no vapor= dry. I've done handles like this green off the saw, and slinging water, and finished them in under a week with zero movement
 
I used to work with black walnut a lot after my Dad and I scored a bunch of it removing some downed limbs for a lady. Stuff is plenty durable but the straight grain I had was rather boring. I don't miss the purple fingers at all either :) Something in the wood can tan your hide purple. Kinda funky till about the second week when Mom is telling me to wash your hands and I already had. A few years back, I was back home in upstate NY and found and old knife I had made with BW and it had been sitting outside for about ten years near an old fort I had built. Blade was rusty but the handle,although faded, was intact and sound. Good test for the walnut and Devcon 2 Ton epoxy :D
 
bladsmth said:
Walnut is a fairly wet wood. It takes a long time to dry to the percentage you need for knife handle ( 7-10%). I would say at least two years, depending on the drying conditions and flitch size. It checks badly. I disagree with Ray on the point about sawing it into handle size blocks. They would crack to uselessness, IMHO. Keep it fairly big, 3" slabs, and coat the ends as soon as it is cut.
Stacy
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To each his own, but I have to respectfully disagree. I cut and dry wet wood all of the time including walnut without it checking and cracking. In fact I just finished drying out 10 knife size walnut burl blocks without much change in the blocks at all. No cracking whatsoever; shrunk some around the edges, but a couple passes on each edge with a jointer and it's a perfect block. You do expect some change of course, but it's pretty simple to minimize cracking if you follow some simple rules to keep it from drying too fast. Let me add by saying that I never cut them into scales and always leave the wood in block form until after dry, usually at least 1"by 1.5" and many times larger than that.

The trick is to seal the end grain of woods prone to damage with anchorseal so that they don't dry too fast; I also keep them stacked between popsicle sticks to minimize warping and I let all of my wood dry inside my house so that they are drying under relatively mild conditions. Most knife handle size blocks easily dry within about month (or sooner) for me and I would say only about 1-2% of the blocks I dry crack badly and most are from species typically hard to dry.
 
kc custom said:
When working with handle size blocks for either stck tangs or scales I've cut them just oversize and then microwave for like only a min. at a time (or you will start a fire inside the wood) to check for total dry put in a ziploc for the last cycle- no vapor= dry. I've done handles like this green off the saw, and slinging water, and finished them in under a week with zero movement
Click to expand...


I'd have to disagree with using this method on walnut; for certain woods this method works well but for walnut I would imagine the drying would be too fast and the blocks would be damaged too badly for use. If in doubt try one and see what happens; you never really know as sometimes I am amazed at the seemingly different properties of the same wood species from different trees.
 
Thanks all for the variety of opinions and suggestions. I have some 3-5" trees that need to be thinned out. I'm working on grinding my first blade(s) and have been thinking about handles a little. Blade first, handle second. Right?

It would be cool to use wood from my own piece of the world, but I am thinking something else might get a better "first knife" result.
 
I was told by a cabinetmaker who gave me a 5 foot long walnut log to let it dry for 5 years, I did, the ends checked about 3 inches in, the rest is good (but boring and porous) wood. I use it for boxes and gunstocks, for knives I prefer cocobolo, purpleheart and desert ironwood (although I got some really nice stabilized burl from Del Ealy that I haven't figured out how to best utilize, it was too nice for the blade I originally bought it for)

-Page
 
I don't use as much wood as most guys here probably, so take this with a grain of salt, but personally I'd let it dry, cut it to very slightly oversize, and let it dry some more. I used some walnut for scales that had been drying in dad's wood shed for well over 30 years. (it was only 1" thick boards) Within a week after cutting it for handles, it warped- after I'd already attached it to a knife. :grumpy:
 
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