Identifying different types of wood

egally08

egally08

Joined
Oct 19, 2012
Messages
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Hey Guys, I am just starting to get into knife making. I have dabbled a little bit with a harbor freight 1x30, but my Pheer 2x72 grinder will be here on Monday. Hell I received 5 packages today filled with Blaze ceramic belts, epoxy, respirators, pin stock, new angle grinder/norton wheels, 30 feet of steel from aldo's ranging from 1095, s30v, to 3v, and finally handle materials. Needless to say I am super excited for Monday.

Anyways, I purchased lot of pre-cut wood from ebay. It has about 75 sets of handles, most of them are 1.5x5. So the listing says the lot contains "BIRDSEYE MAPLE,CURLY MAPLE,CURLY KOA,CURLY REDWOOD, CHERRY,WALNUT,BLACK ASH,GREEN ASH,PURPLE HEART and probably some more" That is the exact wording he used.

I picked out what looks like ten(possibly 9) different woods. If you guys could help me identify which is which, so I can then do research on how exactly I can finish them.






I dampened half of the grain, to bring it out better for the pictures as well.

I will number these from left to right, starting on the first picture. I know for sure the first three are

1. Curly Maple
2.Purple Heart
3.Birdseye Maple

The first one is actually labeled, but that was the only one out of 75.

Comparing other custom knives, it seems the grain on my wood is going in the wrong direction. Well, its not "wrong" but most times the grain goes horizontally if you are holding the knife up and down. Will my handles look alright since the grain is going up and down?

Thanks guys, and any tips for finishing a particular type would be appreciated, but I will look into regardless. Also, I know some of these aren't the most popular for knife handles, but will they all work?
 
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Also, pieces 4-8 are less dense then the other ones. While wood #5 is the least dense. It is super light compared to everything else. They are all hard. No fingernail could imprint them.

These were originally the end cuts used for guitar builds.
 
My guess is #2 purple heart # 9 Sycamore # 10 maple showing a little quilting. Jess
 
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egally08 said:
Thanks for the input guys. Is redwood extremely light?
Click to expand...

If you search around for something like "densities of common hardwood" you will come across some charts that compare different wood densities. Redwood is the lowest density on the list of species you have.
 
There is a parallel thread to this one. I made a comment there, the main point of which I will re-post here.

"There is no way anyone can identify wood from a photo. Twenty people can have twenty suspicions, and none may be correct. Wood is a 3D material, and even in the hand can be hard to identify, but from a small low quality photo....not likely at all."
 
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