Dark Rich Wood

Hey Unk, Woodsafari.com is an Ottawa company that I have bought boxes of offcuts from. They have good prices (although shipping is rough) on offcuts and full blanks and you can get just about anything from them. kjpselecthardwoods.com is also there but they don't have prices on their site. Lee Valley also has some exotic woods and I have picked up some nice pieces from there as well. I believe there is one in Winterpeg and they usually have blocks and blanks of many sizes. Although it doesn't have the variety of woodsafari or kjp, it's worth a look as sometimes stuff catches your eye (and you don't need to ship it hehe). Good luck in any case.
 
The ironwood you saw is on it's way to someone else in Canada. Sorry but you missed it by 1 day. The Waterfall Bubinga Mike has is cool stuff. I am out of good ringed gidgee now as well. If you look at the Black Mulga at HOB, very nice wood. It is a type of Acacia, same family as Koa but lots harder. Good luck with the project.

Edit
Found something stashed in my desk that might work. I sent a PM>
 
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Unky, get adjusted to the Canadian maikling costs including from the USA. Accept the fact they are what they are and part of the cost of making knives . Frank
 
bladsmth said:
It all depends on if you have a source.;)

I have four 24" long blocks that were bought by Bill Moran in the 50's.They were tied together with twine,and still had the string shipping tag from a NY wood supplier.They all had been painted with white house paint and had Bill's address written on them.
At Bill's shop estate auction, they were sitting with the odds and ends and junk wood. I figured that if Bill had ordered them from NY, and kept them all that time, there must be something good under that ugly paint. I scraped some off and thought it looked like ebony, so I bought the bundle for $10. Only after I cut one up did I realize what I had.
In that same area, I bought a big box of cut-offs, and chunks of cut up wood. The bottom had lots of smaller pieces......that ended up being Bill's handle templates and about a dozen handle cutouts for ST-23's and ST-24's. I only paid $7 for that box.

I am currently making a Japanese inspired fillet knife with wooden sheath and handle from one.:D:D
It will be a gift to one of my best friends.
Click to expand...

Stacy, most of what is sold to the regular user today is stumpwood, not the real good stuff like you have. IIRC, Bill used a fair amount of rosewood in the early days, especially on full tang knives. I think that his original Rio Grand Camp knife was done in Brazilian. I have about 6 pool cue blanks that while not that heavily figured, are at least 40 years old and very dense and nice. The high end acoustic guitar makers like Martin and Santa Cruz grabbed up most of the big pieces of figured stuff long ago. As for he OP's question, if you can find some really well figured cocobolo and you aren't allergic to the stuff, then that is a good option.
 
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Thanks Mark but Robert Mayo has found something that will work for me. I just have to start pulling the trigger when I see these things not when I need them:o I got the OK from the surgeon today to go back to my full time job on Monday so the money thing wont be as much of a problem soon as I get that first check in a couple of weeks. Being off work for 9 months has really put a hammering on the bank account.
 
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