Does Ironwood Need to Be Stabilized?

[The Amazing Virginian]

Thanks to everyone for your comments.

I have knives with lots of different handle materials, but I will always have a fondness for fine figured wood handles- especially if they are carved and shaped. For me, it goes way beyond knives. I just love beautiful wood - it is almost a fetish for me. Personal tastes vary, but I think top quality ironwood is some of the most beautiful wood - along with koa, amboyna, fiddleback walnut, spalted maple . . . hell, I love lots of different woods! I even want a knive with a pink ivory handle one day.

Anyway, I am glad to know that I should probably not worry about all of the knives I have with ironwood handles, just because the wood was not stabilized.

 

[Kohai999]

UV does cause darkening in Ironwood and some others, but I don't
know that it's the only cause.

Added: Some woods, like Osage, will darken from air exposure alone.

There is a combination of oxidation and UV that affects all woods, both due to an oxidizing of the oils contained within the woods and a continued degradation of the surface oils by UV that contributes to overall superficial darkening. It isn't only wood....we have all seen in in micarta as well, often it is quite profound...Ivory micarta turns bright yellow, "natural" burlap or linen micarta turns a deep yellow/orange, green turns black. Everything changes.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson

 

[RogerP]

I have knives with lots of different handle materials, but I will always have a fondness for fine figured wood handles- especially if they are carved and shaped. For me, it goes way beyond knives. I just love beautiful wood - it is almost a fetish for me. Personal tastes vary, but I think top quality ironwood is some of the most beautiful wood - along with koa, amboyna, fiddleback walnut, spalted maple . . . hell, I love lots of different woods! I even want a knive with a pink ivory handle one day.

I feel much the same - though I stop just short embracing pink ivory. The near endless variety in colour and grain combined with the ability to shape the handle to an ergonomic ideal unhindered by the material itself are the features that most appeal to me with wood.

I dug up this old pic you might like:

 

[The Amazing Virginian]

I feel much the same - though I stop just short embracing pink ivory. The near endless variety in colour and grain combined with the ability to shape the handle to an ergonomic ideal unhindered by the material itself are the features that most appeal to me with wood.

I dug up this old pic you might like:

{pic omitted}

I DO like! Just look at that variety. In addition to the increased ease of shaping the handle for ergonomics, it also lends itself to decoration, via carving, wire inlay, etc.

For example . . .

 

[Neil Blackwood]

Back when I was cutting up and stabilizing my own wood, I found what many here have already mentioned. Woods like Ironwood just won't absorb the stabilizer. Nothing happens. I found the best woods were the ones that seemed almost too soft to use. Spalted woods are a great example. They are like a sponge. My best woods were so soft they would actually shrink and distort during the proces. After ruining some at first, I started cutting my slabs much larger to account for this. With my knives, wood is not really the hot material these days. I miss prepping and working with it

 

[magnumb]

What beautiful knives RogerP! Thanks for submitting them for our pleasure.

I love wood, especially ironwood. I appreciated the OP for starting this thread as I have many custom knives made from this beautiful wood. None, so far, have been stabilized. I've asked each knifemaker if he felt that it would be beneficial even in the slightest way to stabilize the ironwood scales that I sent to them for my builds and the answer has always been a resounding, "no".

Wood scales add so much character and natural beauty to knives that it wasn't until just this last month that I added my first non-wood handled knife to my 50+ customs. Not a great deal of knives by comparison to many here, but it clearly shows my dedication to knives with wooden scales. BTW - that single non-wooden handle is on a recently purchased fillet knife, where non-wood makes a great deal of sense to me, no matter how dense or stabilized wooden scales might be.

Non-wood scales/handles make a great deal of sense for many different types of knives.....fillet, tactical, etc. But having many less years ahead of me than behind me, I can't help but associate non-wooden handles with production knives. Sooooo, I just can't bring myself to go through all that it takes to plan, dream, discuss at length with the chosen knife maker and then eventually finalize what's necessary in regards to a knife build and then finish it off with non-wooden scales.

Truth be told (sans 'pink ivory'.....LOL), I am also quite fond of dyed wood offerings, especially in box elder burl. Some of the colors, coupled with the natural designs in the wood, just beg to be part of a nice 3 1/4 in. bladed 'hunter'. I had a custom built for my daughter a couple of years ago from green dyed box elder burl and she always gets comments on that knife. There are 'eyes' in those scales that happen to be placed just so that in combination with the woods natural, subtle 'ink lines', everybody swears that there's an outline of a feminine face in those scales. It is quite distinct and as always when using wood......quite unique.

Wooden scales allow for such observations and speculation. Not so much with the 'hot materials' as mentioned above, even though I understand that a different era, individual needs, specific tasks, economic considerations and even fashion now necessarily dictate what materials these skilled individuals must now consider employing in their products.

IMHO......it's much more pleasing to my eyes and also elicits a sense of years gone by for me to stay 'ole school' wood when it comes to knife scales.

YMMV

 

[RogerP]

Truth be told (sans 'pink ivory'.....LOL), I am also quite fond of dyed wood offerings, especially in box elder burl.

I'm okay with some dyed woods - box elder being a good example - so long as the colours aren't too crazy. But there is so much variety in natural colour, figure and grain that I have ample choice without often going the dyed route.

 

[Grapevine]

Ironwood went from among my favorite woods to have on my knives to one that I prefer not to if I were to commission a new knife, and it's specifically due to the darkening as it ages. Recently I've also gone from liking stabilized woods because it allows for so many unusable woods to be used (like spalted maple) to disliking its plastic feel, because it does feel different than the natural wood. But going with unstabilized wood sure does drastically cut down on the possibilities. I've started to buy wood blocks and scales just for the love of the wood, without any real plans to turn them into something else, and I have a couple of beautiful ironwood burl scales that I've squirreled away from any light hoping that I can delay its darkening for as long as possible.