local woods for handle material

koyote

koyote

Joined
Mar 29, 2007
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Well, I can't find *anything* about peach for knife handles, but I've found some people turning bowls and spoons from it:

"a dense, medium grained hardwood that is very durable for every day kitchen use"

Sounds worth trying. I've got a 4 foot straightish 5 inch trunk piece and a 3.5 foot multiple crotch piece from just above there on the trunk. end painted and it's drying. Guess I have to wait. And I may beg my coworker for some more of the burls from what he took for garden edging.

I've also got the stump when I get it out.

The California valley oak is a 'weed tree' in yolo county, and there's no shortage of wood. It's a slow growing tree in the white oak family. the grain is pretty tight and it seems better than red oak, at least.

Walnut trees are everywhere here. I'm sure I'll be using some. Several other nut trees are grown locally.

Olives are all over. I can actually find references to this being used as a knife handle.

If anyone has experience with any of these woods, or think it's worth me curing lots of any type, I'd love to know :)
 
Could be wrong. I would think peach a rather soft wood for us. I never heard of it being used for such. Your walnut is, I would guess, Claro walnut. Claro is a prime to common rifle and gun stock wood. It is most acceptable as a knife handle. Olive I don't know about. As with all woods, get a burly piece for looks or a straight grain for ruff and tumble work.

rlinger
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Could be completely right. I just can't tell until I try, I guess. If nothing else I'll have a pile of pretty wood for boxes and some awesome smoker chips.

And i've got all that oak and olive going on the racks, too
 
I think fruit woods are usually pretty hard. I've heard of people using apple and pear. Go ahead and try the peach. Just make sure it's plenty dry first. ;)
 
Fruit woods are generally fine grained and hard, quite suitable for carving. One of my rifle stocks I made is cherry and I made grips for my Browning HP from peach.Apple is excellent, olive has been usedfor many items -bowls, spoons ,even pistol grips. Make sure it's dry, thoroughly ! The old timers used to bury apple wood in a pond for a couple of years before use !
 
I am not sure about peach, but I like apricot wood for handles-it has some nice colors. I have had trouble with cherry cracking in the more figured parts.

Manzanita burl is very nice for handles, but it does need to be stablized to fill cracks. It is plenty hard, but tends to come apart at the cracks.

Olive wood can be outstanding for knife handles if you get some good grain, the contrasts are good.
 
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