Lignum Vitae

[Lorien]

Apart from the fact that I'm not sure if I pronounce it right, I know that this wood is heavy, dense and oily. Makes for great propeller bushings and mallets as I understand it. www.lignum-vitae.com

Anyway, a buddy of mine who travels the seas on the Royal Canadian Navy Canoe, came across a beautiful chunk of the stuff when he was in the Caribbean, made a knife handle from a small piece of it and then gave me the rest.

I think I'm going to design another throwing knife using a bit of the stuff for some handle scales, and another bit of it for a large bush knife I've been working on the design of. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest yet.

If any of you have any information, impressions, suggestions or ideas about this interesting wood, and it's use for knife handles, I would be very interested in reading them here. And, as always with cap in hand, photographs are always appreciated!

 

[STR]

Its my favorite wood. Needs nothing but a good polishing on a buff wheel once you sand it down good. It will darken if you put it in the sun and noticeably if you just do one side of the knife at a time.

I love the dark heartwood but even the younger lighter wood can be quite stunning. Here is one I did in it a while back for a customers folder. More can be seen here also. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=474676&highlight=lignum
Durability is the real plus though. The weight can be a draw back for some but to me it adds.

STR

 

[Jos]

"Bambi Skinner" made by Achim Wirtz. Handle of lignum vitae and steller sea cow bone. Silver spacers.

(not my knife - pic borrowed from maker)
Kind regards,

Jos

 

[pbubsy]

I love this wood too! I know in WW2 we used it as bearings for the bay doors on our bombers. It's got self lubricating properties.....kinda like Teak. An excellent wood! I like it old and young....they all look great!

 

[RogerP]

I love the stuff! Extremely dense and naturally stable. Also beautiful, to my eye. Someone here owns this gorgeous lignum vitae-handled Tai Goo integral:

Roger

 

[antonio_luiz]

You lucky b-----d! I'm jealous as

Self-lubricating and a favourite for making tackle blocks and also on woodplanes - not sure how it would affect balance of a knife as it's one of the densest and heaviest wood

Post a pic when you've finished the project

 

[HCSchluge]

When I was in the shipyard, on the older ships it was used as the bearing surface for the struts on the propeller shaft. Stuff doesn't rot in salt water, hard a rock but wont marr steel. Awesome stuff.

 

[RMLamey]

ive got a big chunk i havent used yet, got if from Paul Lebetard, hes used it with great results. The piece I have is very heavy for its size, so keep that in mind when using it for balancing the handle etc..

 

[Keith Montgomery]

I really like Lignum Vitae when it is dark like in the Wirtz knife.

 

[Senator]

I love the stuff! Extremely dense and naturally stable. Also beautiful, to my eye. Someone here owns this gorgeous lignum vitae-handled Tai Goo integral:

Roger

That might be my favorite Goo knife ever. I'd love to own that if it's ever sold. Hint hint...

 

[Tai Goo]

The wood on the Wirtz piece does not look like any lignum vitae I've even seen.
STR's example looks much more typical of the grain and color.

 

[Lorien]

I'm with you on that Goo!
As for weight, it's not a huge piece, but man it's heavy. I'll post a picture of it in a little bit.

 

[Keith Montgomery]

Lignum Vitae has a very wide variation in colour and grain. The goblets below are made from it and are of the colour I prefer over the green shades that I have seen.

 

[Tai Goo]

Keith, the grain looks right, but not the color. Those pieces may have been stained or treated somehow.

The term lignum vitae “wood/tree of life” may be used to describe a number of hard dense woods rather than a specific species of wood in some places, like the term “ironwood”. It may also be somewhat interchangeable with the term ironwood. Lignum vitae burns a long time and gives out the most heat of any wood or woods, which is how it got it’s name. The species we call lignum vitae, tends to have a greenish color, distinctive grain, and a very sweet aroma when sanded.

Ironwoods:
http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plsept99.htm

 

[Tai Goo]

Of course there are natural color variations, but most tend to show some greenish color which is the most "typical" of the species...

So far, I've never come across any really dark brown L.V., but if I saw any I'd snag it right away.

 

[Lorien]

 

[STR]

The old wood that was cut a long time ago, you know the stuff, the wood used to make sheeves on sail boats, old early boat engine drive shafts, and things like that were made from very large fully grown and aged trees unlike the much younger not yet as dense commercial trees that are being cut today. The old wood is hard to come by these days. Some of the older lignum, like that found in the attic of William Scagels shop since it was one of his favorite woods, was a very dark brown wood by the time it was found. I've taken pieces of mine after using it for a project and set them in the sun for days to watch them darken and I've noted that on some folders when I used them on handles and a part of the handle stuck out of my pocket from the pocket clip that that exposed part got noticeably darker than the rest of the handle so the sun can oxidize the wood to a large extent. This is the case with other woods too though.

It is very hard to find the dark really nice heart wood like that that was sold 50 or 60 years ago and beyond. Its out there floating around though if you look for it. Lignum is used exclusively for judges gavels and lots of marine uses, old fence posts in certain parts of the world since it never rots, and also it was used a lot on dead blow wooden mallets due to the nice weight the wood allows. If any of you are ever traveling through Memphis Tenn. there is a fine example of one of the really really dark old heart wood tree trunks at Memphis Fine Woods and its huge. Thats what I'm talking about! Its lignum but very different looking from what is the newer stuff sold today. Both are technically the same related woods but I believe, or at least as I was told, the difference is much the same as the wood used today to build houses compared to the wood used 60 years ago. Now the trees are cut so soon that the wood is spongy when you compare it to an old home and the wood used in it. You can see the differene in the density of the grain and you can feel it too if you try to hammer a nail in one verses the other but no matter the wood always hardens with age anyway so this compounds it.

I know in my shop when we remodeled and tore down a wall of 80 plus year old barn board that the wood was so nice and heavy, dense and quality looking compared to the young sapling sponge wood sold today that I kept all of it! Its really worth it tearing down an old building for someone wanting one removed now and then just to keep the wood in my opinion. Wood doesn't get the chance to get that nice today before its cut down. In a way its kind of a shame really. Anyway, I'm just passing on some of what the guys at Fine Woods passed on to me. If you guys that like wood want a treat just tear down someones old barn or pig pen once or twice in your life and take some of the wood or offer to do it to keep the wood. I've done this a few times and we made a nice bar in a family members home using wormy chesnut from just such a venture. To the old farmer we did him a huge favor and saved him a big mess, a big bill to pay someone to tear down what was falling down anyway, and in return we got some of the best wood you can imagine.

STR

 

[Tai Goo]

I've worked with quite a few color variations, from tan, to light brown, to dark bluish green, and they've all had a greenish “tint” to the surface. I suspect that even the darkest pieces would show that to some degree. It's one of the ways to identify it. It may be hard to tell from the pics though. Like most things you need to see it in person in natural light. I've never seen one as dark brown as that middle example I posted IRL, but there may be some out there, maybe even some black ones... just very rare. Patina and aging also have a lot to do with it too, I'm sure.

Once you've worked it, you'll recognize the sweet smell.

If you looked over the ironwood article, lignum vitae should also sink in water.

I probably wouldn't have had this much to say about it, but I do think there is some confusion caused by the different uses of the term or name lignum vitae,... like the term ironwood.

 

[STR]

I love the smell of it in my shop. Sometimes I'll just sand and cut a few pieces of it to make it smell better inside. Yeah, all I've handeled has had greenish patterns running through it. One of the things I like about it is the feathering that can be created by the patterns when you work it.

STR

 

[Tai Goo]

Lorien, that definitely looks like a nice big piece of the real thing. If you are going to use it for scales though,... I'd recommend cutting some smaller pieces from it first, just a bit larger than you need and let it stabilize for a while first. It's also a good idea for hidden tang constructions, but maybe not quite as critical.

It's so hard and dense that it tends to carry quite a bit of internal stress and can warp and change dimensions on you,... More so than most other woods.

What do you think STR? Have you ever noticed that with this “green ironwood“?