How do you finish olivewood

[SVanderkolff]

I have a custom dagger that I am making for a customer that has an olivewood handle. What is the best way to finish this wood. The wood has not been stabilized as I was told it would not work properly and would ruin the finish.
Thanks
Steve

 

[kdstrick]

I've never worked with olivewood, but do have some experience working with other woods that contain oils. Bocote and Cocobolo namely.

Tung oil works well for them. Apply a coat, rub it down with some fine steel wool, apply another... and repeat until your happy with it.


Hope this helps...


.

 

[Big Barn]

Actually, with unstablized ollive wood you really don't need anything. With the amount of natural oils in the wood, you can simply just start buffing & get a very good hard sheen. However, my personal choice would be pure tung oil. It's going to take a while to build up (probably at least day between coats) but will give you a good finish.