Italian olive

Walt2

Walt2

Joined
Mar 13, 2001
Messages
1,157
Anyone here familiar with Italian Olive? Does it need to be stabilized to be used as knife scales or is it one of those that are fine without it?
 
Every time I've used olive, I've had it stabilized. There are different varieties that vary in terms of density and hardness - but the ones I've used were relatively soft and lightweight - but they stabilized well.

TedP
 
To my knolledge olive wood is very oily (and pretty) and goes well without stabiliising
It has been been used for handles for thousens of years
Next to boxwood it is the most dense European hardwood
 
I find Italian olives too green for me...I like Greek olives :)

Olive wood is a really lovely handle wood. I have used it stabilized, but it really doesn't need to be. It is really nice for kitchen handles.

There will be all sorts of adjectives added to the name olive. I find they are mostly sales terms, and doubtful in many cases. Wild, Italian, California, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, etc........it is hard to tell one from the other ( and I doubt it matters).
 
I used olive unstabilized on a knife not long ago. Finished up beautifully with tung oil. Very hard.
 
Olive wood only takes about 3% resin in weight when stabilised.

It's quite dense and its oily properties make it fairly stabil and water resistant.
 
Have to agree with Stacy. I've used olive with lots of different names and from (reportedly) lots of different places. Not much difference. Works well without stabilization. Teak oil has become my favorite finish for olive.
 
or hand sand to 2500.

Olive wood cutting boards roling pinns etc are made out of many knife handle blocks :)
 
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