Knife handle wood, where do you like to get yours?

As i have made and given away more knives, i have come more to realize that the appearance (ie configuration and finish) of a handles knife makes a HUGE difference on the perception of how "nice" a knife is (just take a good look at the make up and variety of horsewrights handles to see this). So iwould now say where to get your wood depends on your objective. If you just "want a handle" you can get your wood many places (home depot, etc, horsewright even has an example of a really nice handle made from wood from a pallet - but he has a great eye for figure). If you want something "kind of nice", you can get boards or turning blanks from a place like Woodcraft and cut it down (but the more i do this, the more i look at that wood closely for figure - and reject a lot of it). For a lot of woods you can go to a place like BellForestProducts. Much of the pieces there are pretty good, but i would say that the figure of the pieces there does not really "pop". Many of the knife supply places carry various wood blocks ... i would say their pieces are pretty good, BUT you take your chances on whether the final finished product will make you (and others) say something like " Wow - that is beautiful!". If you want consistently beautiful results, you need a place like Greenburg woods .. a place that has selected great figure in the raw wood, then cut the blocks to make the best of the figure available.

All will technically work, but You get what you pay for. I make knives for myself, family, and friends, and give them away ... so currently i am sitting kind of in the middle of the range ... woodcraft, online places like bell forest products, etc ... but i almost always look for some reasonable figure. Currently i cant really justify buying from Greenburg, BUT i recognize the quality and appearance ... and if i were to need to make a really special knife (regardless of the steel used), or were making knives to sell where i could get a price to offset cost of materials, i would be going to Greenburg woods in a minute!
 
I 100% get that quality wood is very important (especially one higher end knives)
But you guys don't think that https://arizonaironwood.com/ stocks quality wood? even if there's some waste I feel like it would still be worth it for the price.
Though with that said if I'm making a knife that I want something really nice then I'm absolutely going to somewhere like https://greenbergwoods.com/
 
Bunker Hill Blades said:
I 100% get that quality wood is very important (especially one higher end knives)
But you guys don't think that https://arizonaironwood.com/ stocks quality wood? even if there's some waste I feel like it would still be worth it for the price.
Though with that said if I'm making a knife that I want something really nice then I'm absolutely going to somewhere like https://greenbergwoods.com/
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I dont think anyone has said that arizona ironwood does not carry quality wood - I think they have pretty much said what you did .... that it is worth it for the price. Sounds like you know the difference, and what you can get if you go for a higher priced wood - I would just leave it at that. Many other good suggestions on this thread for sources.
 
Bunker Hill Blades said:
I 100% get that quality wood is very important (especially one higher end knives)
But you guys don't think that https://arizonaironwood.com/ stocks quality wood? even if there's some waste I feel like it would still be worth it for the price.
Though with that said if I'm making a knife that I want something really nice then I'm absolutely going to somewhere like https://greenbergwoods.com/
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If this is too much business talk for my membership do let me know and I will delete this, but I dont think I or anyone else claimed AIW is low quality. They are really good guys and they specialize in Desert ironwood. If you want to use some desert ironwood, and you have the tooling to break down a bigger piece, do it. Its a great experience and its one of the explorations into other fields that knifemaking lets to explore. I honestly like the vast majority of wood sellers in the knife market, there are only a few people i think are scummy. If someone has material that fits your interest, sizes, and budget by all means order it.

I personally focus my wood selection on a large variety of exotic, high figure woods. If im not mistaken AIW stocks 5-10 species, at last count i think have about 25, more if you count woods like amboyna burl and curly narra as being different. Stocking such a variety does add some cost to my material. A lot of my woods are also more expensive from the source. I dont stock box elder, curly maple and spalted hackberry, woods like acacia burl, figured ebony and rosewood, amboyna and afzelia xylay are simply expensive. I also pay my suppliers above what many other importers due, because that close relationship is a large part of what lets me get the incredibly rare and figured woods when they become available. There is also high loss rates when selecting for figured blocks.

Im aware i provide a premium product. Ive been working to offer things like my cocobolo and blackwood with prices in the mid $20, and I am also looking into selling large billets of unprepped material so people can process and stabilize at home.

But in the end, its just wood. If you like the material a seller is offering and you think its a good price for good stock, get it. Dont feel pressured to buy from any supplier because of implied quality. Try out a variety of sellers, see what products and whos service you like. If its within your budget, place small orders with different sellers when you see something that catches your eye.
 
I really quite enjoy finding wood in the bush and turning it into blocks. I can be really choosy about what I send off for stabilizing and it is sort of cool to be able to say "I got this burl from.."

Funny. My school meets outside every day and all of our learning is hands on in place. A few students have taken to "spotting" knife hand and flute wood for me. The rest try to get as far away from me as possible when they see me checking out a downed tree in hopes of not getting wrangled into helping me cart the wood out of the bush. I pay in Tim Bits and Starburst.

What Greenberg says about "yield" out of a piece of wood is really true. There are times where I figure I will get 15-20 blocks out of a nice sized Maple Burl and wind up with only 10-11.
 
Hi everyone I have only made a couple of knives and the timber for the scales I collect off our 70 acre property here in Queensland Australia we have some Bendee acacia , Crows ash, Rosewood and assorted Eucalyptus I have about 500 sets of blanks sitting in the shed so I guess they will have plenty of time to dry out at the rate I am producing knives. Cheers Dave
 
I just processed a large pile of wood that I acquired from different places. The amount of time and offcuts is incredible but there are goona be some nice scales there. I will post some pics when i get the chance, including:

- cherry wood i got from a friend that was cut from his friends garden and was meant to be firewood (free)
- olive stumps and roots that i got from my last trip in siciliy from a place that we stumbled upon while on our way to the beach (free)
-spalted poplar burl i found near my parents house (free)
-regular poplar burl i got from local classified for a really good price (30 € for two large stumps)
- almond wood i got from my girlfriends country place (ended all in firewood pile since it was too chequered)

I also buy offcuts from exotic woods from an ebay shop that deals in woods for music instruments (maple burl for stabilizing, african blackwood, different rosewoods)

I also ask anyone who is in wood business and friends and friends of friends if they have offcuts or nice figured wood for sale.
 
Just received a box of about 30 pieces of figured maple and some other woods back from Brad/ken at K&G. Great job. I'll be sanding like a crazy man to get it ready for packing Thursday for Harrisonburg. Many thanks for them expediting part of my large batch. See some of you this weekend.
 
john april said:
i get most of mine from ebay. i usually try to age mine 2 years before using them. if you want to use wood right away, its a good idea to have a moisture meter. wood should be at 5-9% moisture so the chances are low that it will shrink, expand, twist or curl after its on the knife.
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Yeah I learned that one the hard way unfortunately...

These days I buy from a variety of places, but my favorite overall quality material comes from Greenberg Woods. I also ordered some nice Koa several times from Shelton Pacific but when I went to include a link here, it looks like they're out of business! That's a bummer. They had awesome quality for the price.
I've also gotten some really nice pieces from @exotic_blanks on Instagram.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Just received a box of about 30 pieces of figured maple and some other woods back from Brad/ken at K&G. Great job. I'll be sanding like a crazy man to get it ready for packing Thursday for Harrisonburg. Many thanks for them expediting part of my large batch. See some of you this weekend.
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I'm not sure if they're still doing it, but a while back they were selling a lot of really nice stuff on IG for amazing prices. They even hooked me up with a free set of scales one time just because they saw I was a vet, which was really nice! I've only had really amazing experiences from K&G.
 
I just got a $50 mystery box from Greenberg, (which is supposed to be just as high quality as everything else on his website) but I’m kind of disappointed in the quality, I got two blocks, one block of desert iron wood and one block of stabilized curly acacia, the iron wood on one side is gorgeous but it’s also got a crack on that side, but the other side is very bland and has practically no figure/contrast at all. For the acacia, where the curly figure is, is stunning, but the curly figure only runs through about half to two third the block.
This is the first time I’ve got anything from Greenberg and I’m a little disappointed 😕
But I also don’t want to give him a bad rep because he seems like a great guy.
 
I'm a hobbyist and the only wood I use is HIGHLY figured curly maple. Some call it fiddle back, tiger maple etc. Bottom line I work off the SCRAPS from a local custom maker of custom muzzle loaders. He recently passed but I have a lifetime supply in my attic of my knife shop.
 
I was reminded of this thread today..... Whenever I happen to be going by my local Woodcraft store I drop in and see if anything new is in. I came across this piece of Bocote. Lots of nice alternating contrasting grain. Not thick enough to use for Wa handles, but easily thick enough to resaw pieces to get plenty of bookmatched scales. I wonder how that central strip with "eyes" would look if cut into scales with focus on that type of figure?? (I need to get it down into the shop and check the moisture level....)
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Some tips on mortise handles:
1) When you split the block, make "X"s along one side so you can reassemble with the grain correctly aligned. Done right, the seam can be invisible.
2) It is best to make one scale slightly thinner and do the mortise channel on the thicker block. This is stronger and easier than channeling both sides.
3) Make the mortise about 1/4" longer than the tang. Thai allows for trimming to fit the guard, etc.
4) Make the mortise depth so the tang slides in and out smoothly with the blocks clamped together. Don't try for too snug a fit.
5) Use a good grade wood glue like Tight-bond. It comes in light and dark, so use the color that best fits the wood tone. Epoxy and CA may show the joint line.
6) Wax the tang and insert while gluing up the handle. After the glue starts to set up. remove the blade. This prevents squeeze-out from filling the mortise.
7) Any squeeze-out inside can be removes by a steel wire with the end sharpened to a J-hook chisel
8) Don't drill any pin holes until the handle is completely dry-fitted with the guard and blade. If you do them too soon they will likely not line up after all te sanding and fitting is done.
9) Use epoxy to assemble the knife to the handle. While 5-mionute epoxy will work in a hidden tang assembly, using 1-hour or even 24-hour epoxy allows more adjustment time. This is especially needed if installing pins and using a handle clamping jig.
10) Alcohol is the correct solvent for uncured epoxy - denatured works best, but 99% isopropanol works, too. Immediately after assembly, wipe off the excess epoxy with a paper towel and clean up the rest with a paper towel moistened in alcohol. Wait a bit until the glue pot is starting to gel, and wipe down again with alcohol. Done before it cures you can remove every trace of epoxy. Once cured, you have to use acetone.
 
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