Customizing your Bali

D

David2584

Joined
Oct 10, 1999
Messages
593
Hi all,

Recently, I decided to modify my Jaguar with the cheap plastic inserts to a wood insert. So, today I was shopping around in a wood store and saw many nice pieces of wood such as cocobolo, rosewood, and even snakewood. I never had any idea how expensive snakewood was. It costs about $20 a lb, which translates to a very small piece. Not to mention how easily it cracks.

Well, so I decided to buy a piece of cocobolo wood. So my question is has anyone ever done a similar modification? I have done other modifications with other knives that turned out good, but I have never had to drill ovalish holes. Any hints or pointers would be appreciated. Thanks

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A real knife collector is always broke.
 
Hermit a friend and fellow bali and auto fan made me a semi custom insert job. I provided the kamagong wood and I think it came out prety well.. do check it out.
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~soo/balisong/article12.html

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<A HREF="http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~soo/balisong/balisong.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~soo/balisong/balisong.html
</A> If you play with love you will be heartbroken; if you play with knives you will [bleed]


 
Susan,

I saw that semi custom before, nice work. I know Hermit can do a good job as seen when he modified many Italian Stilettos on the old board. I was looking more towards making it myself though. Thanks.


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A real knife collector is always broke.
 
I recommend taking Hermits steps for the first one. Oval holes are a trouble. I reccomend flatning the bumps, drilling and tapping pin holes into two or three spots on each side, then pinning down counter sunk scales. Shape with a belt grinder.
 
My advice: start with some other kind of wood. Cocobolo, while one of my favorites, does not have a straight grain which makes it very interesting to look at and very interesting to work with. One reason that knives made with woods like snakewood and Cocobolo are extra expensive is that for every square inch that ends up on the knife, a square foot or so ends up the garbage having cracked, split, etc. I'd suggest you start with some simple, inexpensive wood and try that out a few times. You can replace the inserts several times as you work up to more challenging woods.

It's like balisong manipulation: you don't start out with the complex tricks. Starting out with a less-challenging material does not mean that you're not a great woodworker. It means that you're a smart woodworker... smart enough to get the techniques and the patterns down before you start making toothpicks out of $20/lbs chunks of material.




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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
another warning..

while cocobolo has a nice cinnamon smell when it is burnt/sanded, you should definetely wear some sort of dust mask. the dust is very fine and can be very bad ju-ju when inhaled.

I love cocobolo, and it turns a nice dark color with age.

 
Oh, good point.

I'm told that when Tulip wood oil burns, the result is very, very irritating to both the eyes and the lungs. Ironwood dust is not entirely unlike asbestos in the lungs. I am assured that the common myth that dust from Mother of Pearl is poisonous is not true but that it is very, very irritating.

So, any of you who are considering a bit of do-it-yourself refinishing might want to stick to more conventional materials if you don't have properly ventilated equipment.



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Chuck
Balisongs -- because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
http://www.balisongcollector.com
 
Thanks to everyone who replied! At least now I have some extra precations to look out for. I'll probably start with some scrap wood as a test before I start on the cocobolo. And yes, I do wear a mask when I do personal customizations, especially when I grind metal. Metal dusk can be very hazerdous if inhaled.

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A real knife collector is always broke.
 
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