machete handles

[chabla]

my dad and have been refurbishing an old machete as a "father son" thing and we are gonna replace the old rotting wood handles. we want to make them out of wood that we have laying around so my choices are oak or brazilian ipe handles. my father said the ipe is hard tough wood so i am leaning towards that for the handles. what are your opinions?

 

[bearthedog]

Bubble gum makes for good handles!

 

[Brian Jones]

ipe will be more resistant to temperature and moisture changes.

 

[DeadeyeLefty]

Tannins in the oak will darken with exposure to moisture. This will 'leach' the pink out of the wood and darken the grain (I assume you mean red oak and not white ?) I haven't used ipe in a long time but if it's the stuff I'm thinking of it's somewhere between a really dark mahogany and black walnut but denser. It's stable, holds fasteners well but warm it up a bit before epoxying it - that'll allow the epoxy to get into the pores better. But that's just my .02

 

[pict]

Go with the Ipe. Then again I'm biased. Mac

 

[MacHete]

I've never worked with ipe, but I would expect it to do better than oak for a machete handle. As Brian mentioned, the moisture stability is an issue - especially with a machete handle. I know my palms sweat a whole lot more when I'm swinging a machete or a khuk than when I'm, say, whittling.

Ipe's apparently a pretty popular decking material, but I've seen it used on guitar fingerboards. It is similar in color to rosewood, but lacks the figure. I guess since a fingerboard is going to be broken up with frets, the pretty grain of rosewood can be kinda wasted.

Good luck with whichever you decide, and of course, post some pics.