handle

[v-6]

what do you pro's do to your wood handles?

 

[richard j]

can you be more specific?

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I put them on knives.

 

[Evan Martin]

I put them on knives.

yeah what he said

 

[Will52100]

You talking about stabilized, heavy oily woods, dry?

Stabilized needs nothing but polishing as it's basicly wood fiber in an acrilic block, and unless there's voids or open pores in the grain that can trap dirt a good coat of wax generaly does it. Most people use thin super glue to fill voids.

Oily woods are treated much the same, like desert ironwood and ebony. I usualy give a light coat of watco danish oil to help seal them.

Dry woods like maple and oak need some sort of sealer and are prime candidates for stabilizing. Depending on the wood I usualy try to get it too soak as much danish oil as it'll take. Open pored wood like Oak I wet sand with danish oil to fill the pores and then finish with danish oil and hand buffing. I've used poly before, but prefere danish oil or tung oil. Some people prefere linseed oil. Basicly some sort of sealer is needed to get moister and hand oils and such out of the wood as it'll absorb them.

It all depends on the wood and a lot of times which piece of particular wood as no two pieces will be exactly the same.