Need help with stabilized wood

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BlueFalcon

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Feb 29, 2012
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Okay I bought some stabilized black ash burl for fathers day that I'm going to make a handle out of for my zt0121. Problem is I've never done it before. I've done carpentry as well as construction, I am one of those people that can do pretty much anything and do it well regardless of whether or not I've done it before. I just need to be pointed in the right direction. I've got sandpaper from 220 grit all the way to 3000, a dremel, and a drill. Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks everyone
 
It works with the same tools you would use on wood, and works about like a very hard wood will. If stabilized right it lacks much in the way of pores so you don't have to worry about buffing compound clogging them, etc. Just shape it like you would any other wood, and the finishing stages are easier than with non stabilized wood. At least thats my experience.
 
Hey, trying to do the same thing for this LRK plus project by JK knives, just finished first attempts at shaping it, seems to work same any other wood but I have it on good authority that some stabilizabilized woods can be toxic so use a respirator.face mask

A link to a few of us trying to work out handle stuff on the LRK: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/959169-The-LRK-Mod-Discussion-and-Pic-Thread

theres a few guys posting in there that know what there doing ad a few like me who don' but are trying to work it out,

hope you enjoy your project,

Kyenglish
 
well you will want a drill press so that the holes are exactly perpendicular to the tang.
(1) make sure wood handle slabs are flat and parallel
(2) stick slabs together with double-stick tape. Make sure the tape doesn't bunch up or overlap
(3) stick slabs onto tang with double-stick tape.
(4) drill the holes using the tang as a guide (note: figure out drill-bit sizes needed before taping the tang to the wood!)
(5) trace the shape of the tang on the scale that it's stuck to
(6) separate the scales, then line up the holes of the tang with those on the second scale, and trace the tang shape onto that scale
(7) figure out which scale will go on which side, then mark the inside of each scale so you will not get mixed up once you start contouring the scales
(8) rough-shape the scales - you want them close to final because once they are put on the knife it will be very difficult to get them to exact shape without messing up the coating on the tang, BUT you don't want to go overboard and remove too much so shape a bit, then put the scales in place to check them, then shape some more, etc.
(9) affix the scales using whatever system you like
(10) contour the scales
ta da!

I must say I spent some of today trying to put stabilized black palm scales on a kitchen knife and I can't believe how hard it is to sand the suckers flat, even using power tools!
 
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Hey everyone thank you for the informative responses, this helps to dispel some of the trepidation I was feeling about the project. I have one more question though, what type of strength would this handle have as far as hard use? this zt will become my edc. I know that hard use is relatively general but I don't have any definitive tasks to list. I use my knife for everything from cutting trees and wood, to boxes, plastics, as well as food prep. Any answers will be greatly appreciated. I know that wood differs dependent on the species and density, so I assume this would affect the stabilization process. Mostly I want information on the black ash burl.
 
My recommendation would be to buy some G10 or a cheap piece of wood, like cocobolo, and make a couple of test runs. Nothing worse than ruining a nice piece of wood. Stabilized wood has been pretty easy to work with in my experience. If an accident happens and you need to glue it back together, regular gorilla glue works extremely well and it's waterproof. Also, I would recommend using brad point and forstner drill bits over the standard spade type. For heavy shaping/rounding, a belt sander will give you the best results, but if all you have is a dremel, then you might want to hand sand using a block to keep the edges flat. When doin your rough shaping, keep the edges at least 1/16" heavy because youll sand it off during the finish sanding. they look better if they're a little too large than a little too small! I also second the drill press. Drilling by hand is incredibly difficult and I think the counter sink on the pivot screw of your knife is critical to keepin the blade centered.

Good luck and post pics!!
 
It should be pretty strong. I would try to keep the scale between 1/8" and 3/16" thick for added strength.
 
since it's a fixed blade you can make it as thick as you want & still be comfortable. I bet you could do 1/4" scales on that particular knife.

Now, if you drop the knife on cement the stabilized wood handle will dent more than G10 would, but G10 would still get dinged. If you want to be able to pound on things with the butt of the knife, make the handle scales 1/16" or so shorter so that the tang sticks out a wee bit from the scales at the butt and so when hammering with the butt you will only be striking with metal not with the wood handles.

The main thing about the stabilized wood is not that it can't take hard work, but that if you scuff it up it will be more noticeable than if you scuffed up micarta or G10 b/c the polished wood looks so much nicer than the synthetics & so any damage will stand out more.

That's a good suggestion about trying out the scale-making process first, but I would say just use some soft pine so you get the feel for the process - G10 or micarta are more expensive, harder to work, and you don't want to inhale that dust if you don't need to (and you will inhale some, it's fine and gets everywhere, expect black snot).

One step I forgot to add is that when you take the slabs off to shape them, connect them together with pins/rod through the holes you drilled, and that way you can make sure that both scales will be exactly the same shape.
Also I should clarify when I say "shape" I mean the two-dimensional shaping of the scales to fit the tang. When I say "contour" I mean doing the 3-dimensional shaping of the scales on all areas except the side that is attached to the tang, in order to make the handles more rounded/comfortable.
 
I didn't realize that this was for a fixed blade. My bad! Make em as thick as you want!

Don't be stupid; buy a dang respirator!!!!! They don't cost that much and you'll be saving your lungs from hell. A lot of hardwoods are just as bad as G10 (which is fiberglass) if not worse, and stabilized wood is the wood plus some type of epoxy.
 
Haha don't worry I have a gasmask I use for this sort of thing, I have worked on g10 and micarta but recently I've had the urge to go old school. I started looking around and found some really beautiful woods that I didn't even know about. That's why I'm trying this project, thanks for all the help guys, ill make sure and post some pictures to show off the fruits of my labor when its all said and done.
 
Personally, I think G10 looks cheap. There are some absolutely gorgeous woods available.
 
Yes I agree, I honestly had never seen any wooden scales like burl koa, zebrawoood, maple burl, etc. until recently. If always seen knives with pretty generic wooden scales. I assumed that the prettier woods would be out of my price range but I started researching and found that its actually extremely affordable compared to what I was expecting. It also gives the wife some ease of mind because she's a tough one for approval when it comes to knives. You would think that her being full blooded japanese, literally I was in japan and married her, that she would have more interest in blades, go figure haha
 
I have had success going to a building materials recycling center that sells salvaged materials from construction etc. I found some ipe, oak, black walnut, and maple flooring scraps there which were suitable for scales. The maple flooring I found happened to be birdseye, one of my favorites. A friend of mine gave me a chunk of osage orange which is nice looking stuff and polishes up nicely, so does the ipe. I have ipe scales on a Kershaw Chill and osage orange sales on a Tenacious.

I used the maple for a kitchen knife. Even though the wood is not stabilized, it seems to be holding up just fine. I always wash and dry it after use because its carbon steel.

Ric
 
A good source of wood for knife scales is timber flooring samples.
Another thing about using salvaged woods for knife handles, is that the "interesting" parts of the wood from our points of view are generally the unwanted parts from a structural POV.
Knots and swirly grains do not make for strength as a building material. So the "Offcuts" bin is likely to have a decent collection for knifemaking.
 
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