Figured hardwood knife scales

BubsterX1

BubsterX1

Joined
Aug 25, 2018
Messages
146
Hi all,

I have a first-world problem that I am hoping you might be able to help with. I have a few knives that I would like to have rehandled in my favorite wood -- Curly or "tiger" maple, with an amber/honey/orangey color to it. I am not a knifemaker, but I have lots of tiger maple furniture in my house and it's a pretty simple matter to get the color you want on some tiger maple furniture (which is very blond/light in its natural state). You can just spray on some water-soluble dye until you get the color you want.

I understand that it's different with knife scales. The maple is not so hard (as compared to desert ironwood for example), so it has to be stabilized. And one can add dyes to the stabilization mixture to color the wood throughout the piece. The trouble is that the companies that do a professional job with stabilization, like Knife and Gun, only have so many dye options, and I am not in a hurry to buy a bunch of highly figured tiger maple and send it off for dying and stablization only to see that the resulting color is not at all close to what I was looking for.

Here are my specific questions:

(1) Does anyone have a photo of some tiger maple that was stabilized in K&G's "yellow" dye?

(2) Does anyone know a reputable source for curly/tiger maple knife scales that already have been dyed and stabilized?

(3) Has anyone worked with curly maple that was "roasted" or "toasted" in an oven to produce a honey color throughout the piece?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you may have.

Edit: I just inserted a photo of a tiger maple box that has the colors/hues that appeal to me.
APhrlYo.jpeg
 
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1) Curly maple handles with contrast colors are usually NOT stabilized. You can't dye the wood once stabilized. After applying te dyes and sanding them back, a good rubbed in coat of shellac or varnish can really make it POP!
2) If you dye and stabilize it like K&G (they do mine), the color contrast isn't the same. It may be two colors of brown or such. It looks great, but not what you are describing.
3) The best color contrast orange/yellow/brown comes from acid stains. It is only surface deep and sands off if you sand too much.
4) Roasted curly maple is nice, but it is all brown shades. Usually a tan with darker stripes. No orange.

At the Harrisonburg show, I sell roasted maple and lots of stabilized dyed and undyed curly maple. I always have some unstabilized material for the fellows who do silver wire inlay and want to stain it in the antique arms shades. The dyed and stabilized is the best seller. I dye it brown, green, red, blue, and black. Black can be stunning in a really bold curl.

Ron Wilson used to make and sell a concoction he called Magic Maple Stain. It would turn nice curly maple into crazy curly maple with browns/yellows, and oranges. Sadly, Ron is gone now, and I think his recipe is, too.
Black Powder and Gunstock forums and books have lots of recipes to make vinegarroon and other acid dyes with steel wool, vinegar, and other acids and chemicals.
The commercial Magic Maple stain may be what Ron repackaged and sold. It is available from many gun suppliers. Do a search for it.
 
IMG_1905.jpeg

Off topic of the Op’s questions but…. It was Majestic Maple Stain. RW was a good man. This has a tendency to turn green over time on certain pieces of wood so I never used it for anything I was selling. Aqua Fortis is an alternative along with leather dyes.
 
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Ahh, yes ... Majestic Maple Stain. I have a bottle somewhere out with the hawk handle stuff.
Ron was a great fellow. Anyone who met him at a show will remember him and his outfit. He would invite you to come to his place in WV for a week and build a Ron Wilson Grinder. I bought a bundle of hawk handle blanks from him pretty much every year. The older I get, the more old friends I miss.
 
Thanks for the responses. I inserted a photo of a nicely colored tiger maple box above in my original post.

For curly maple knife scales, I think I am limited to pieces that have been dyed during the stabilization process, or the roasted tiger maple option. I understand that there are treatments that could be applied to the scales after they have been attached to the knife (at least in theory), but I am not sure that would work for me because I am planning to have mosaic pins installed, and it would be a shame if they got scratched or discolored by something like leather dye while I was trying to apply it.
 
I have precisely ZERO expertise on this topic, however, I used *water based aniline dyes* to add color to this curly maple tomahawk handle from Dunlap Woodcrafts [edit: correction]. A neighbor is a retired cabinet maker and he loaned me the dyes and walked me through the process. The dyes come in assorted colors but I was limited to what he had on hand. A coat of wipe on poly finished the job.

IMG-2674.jpg
 
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I have had good experiences buying dyed and stabilized maple blanks from Bitterroot Handle Works. I want to try my hand at aqua fortis though. Has anyone had any wood stabilized after using aqua fortis or leather dye?
 
You could stabilize it after the dye dries .... BUT .... The problem is those dying techniques are shallow depth. If you dyed and stabilized the block and then shaped it into a knife handle all the curl and dye would be gone.

The dying of wood during stabilizing is done under pressure and vacuum and goes through and through. You can grind away as much as you need and the color is pretty much the same. There is some very pretty stabilized dyed curly maple available.

The best solution for the OP's knife handles is to buy some dyed and stabilized wood that he likes the look of from K&G or another wood seller and have the handles done with it.
His other option is to use unstabilized wood and do a traditional dye with alcohol-based leather/wood dyes or an acid stain and then apply a finish.
 
Thanks, Stacy. I hadn't thought about the depth of penetration of the stain. I've been saving up (my wife would say hoarding) highly figured maple cutoffs from other projects to eventually send off for stabilization. You were right in my area for the Harrisonburg show, I unfortunately had to miss it due to family obligations. Next year.
 
Good to know. I'll give you a holler if I get up that way.

I think I have been there before years ago when rockhounding. Just a few minutes from New Market. Blink and you drove through it.

I'll look through my stabilized maple and see if I have anything like you are looking for.
 
Much obliged. You are correct, New Market is one of the closest exits off the interstate, and yes, like most valley towns, if you blink you'll miss it
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
You could stabilize it after the dye dries .... BUT .... The problem is those dying techniques are shallow depth. If you dyed and stabilized the block and then shaped it into a knife handle all the curl and dye would be gone.

The dying of wood during stabilizing is done under pressure and vacuum and goes through and through. You can grind away as much as you need and the color is pretty much the same. There is some very pretty stabilized dyed curly maple available.

The best solution for the OP's knife handles is to buy some dyed and stabilized wood that he likes the look of from K&G or another wood seller and have the handles done with it.
His other option is to use unstabilized wood and do a traditional dye with alcohol-based leather/wood dyes or an acid stain and then apply a finish.
Click to expand...
This makes sense and is consistent with what I pieced together from researching it online and talking to other people. I had never heard of a dyeing process that could penetrate the wood below surface level, but K&G and others have a way to pressurize the fluid so that it goes all the way through. They stabilize it afterwards.

Some woods, like Rosewood and Ringed Gidgee (from Australia) are so hard and dense that they don't need to be stabilized. Maple, unfortunately, does need to be stabilized. The same is true for Koa and Curly Mango, from what I understand.

I appreciate everyone taking the time to comment.
 
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