Recommendation? Need quick advice

allenkey

allenkey

Joined
May 19, 2018
Messages
203
Hey guys,

So I was getting ready to cut out some scales for a knife I'm working on for my Dad. They're stabilized redwood.

I was sanding off some of the excess resin and dropped one of the pair. It split immediately.

Is this normal for redwood? I have never worked with it before. I have a feeling I bought a dud but I was curious to see what you guys had to say. Pics included

Should probably just buy some from somewhere else?
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20191208_145927.jpg
    IMG_20191208_145927.jpg
    256.7 KB · Views: 83
  • IMG_20191208_145956.jpg
    IMG_20191208_145956.jpg
    181.6 KB · Views: 81
Never worked with that wood. Could you cut it along the crack and make a 2 piece scale with a contrasting pics of wood or and accent like a ss liner with adjact color liners?
 
did it crack across the grain or with the grain? (cant quite tell from the photo). if with the grain - my guess would be the piece was not well penetrated by resin. If across the grain ... that is just weird. Was this piece done by K&G? (I seem to recall a conversation with them where they said they had had difficulty stabilizing redwood (already too dense)....

Just shooting from the hip here - but intuition seems to want to tell me that a well stabilized piece of wood should not just split like that.....
 
scott kozub said:
Never worked with that wood. Could you cut it along the crack and make a 2 piece scale with a contrasting pics of wood or and accent like a ss liner with adjact color liners?
Click to expand...
Luckily it was a set so I have enough for this particular knife haha. This piece is a part of an oversize scale set

Cushing H. said:
did it crack across the grain or with the grain? (cant quite tell from the photo). if with the grain - my guess would be the piece was not well penetrated by resin. If across the grain ... that is just weird. Was this piece done by K&G? (I seem to recall a conversation with them where they said they had had difficulty stabilizing redwood (already too dense)....

Just shooting from the hip here - but intuition seems to want to tell me that a well stabilized piece of wood should not just split like that.....
Click to expand...
This piece is definitely 'stabilized' but by whom I am not sure. It's from a company called IsleWoods. Doesn't sink in water completely but smells like stabilized wood when sanded... I liked the look of the set specifically which is why I got it. It split with the grain and now that I read Josh's post below yours...

Josh Rider said:
If it’s cross-cut where the grain is like you’re showing it’s going to be weak whether you stabilize it or not.
Click to expand...

I suppose I did not realize it would be THAT weak! I really liked the look of the growth rings ... but it split with minimal effort. Had a sinking feeling immediately. I dropped the matching piece and it split in the same exact spot...

I guess now I know :/ have a feeling as soon as I starting peening the pins it would split again. I'm just gonna call this a loss and buy some different scales...

Thanks guys >_<
 
allenkey said:
Luckily it was a set so I have enough for this particular knife haha. This piece is a part of an oversize scale set


This piece is definitely 'stabilized' but by whom I am not sure. It's from a company called IsleWoods. Doesn't sink in water completely but smells like stabilized wood when sanded... I liked the look of the set specifically which is why I got it. It split with the grain and now that I read Josh's post below yours...



I suppose I did not realize it would be THAT weak! I really liked the look of the growth rings ... but it split with minimal effort. Had a sinking feeling immediately. I dropped the matching piece and it split in the same exact spot...

I guess now I know :/ have a feeling as soon as I starting peening the pins it would split again. I'm just gonna call this a loss and buy some different scales...

Thanks guys >_<
Click to expand...

It stinks because some wood looks beautiful when cut like that, it’s just very brittle. It may help if it’s epoxied to some g10, but there’s always that fear of dropping it so a lot of knife makers won’t even touch it.
 
Josh Rider said:
It stinks because some wood looks beautiful when cut like that, it’s just very brittle. It may help if it’s epoxied to some g10, but there’s always that fear of dropping it so a lot of knife makers won’t even touch it.
Click to expand...
It does stink. Startlingly brittle. I definitely don't feel comfortable using it!

Thanks for chiming in, man. I wouldn't have thought it was just the cut causing it to be brittle if you didn't post..

I would've turned around and bought a set that looked similar from ironwoodman lol
 
I’ve bought a lot of stuff from ironwoodman, he has some beautiful stuff.
 
I would venture a guess that some woods could be suitably stabilized to make a cross grain exposure pretty stable .. but it would need to be a less dense wood so as to allow the resin to really penetrate and give more support between grain striations (kind of like the idea with holes in a tang to produce “epoxy rivets”). This wood was probably just too dense, or not suitably enough stabilized to allow full penetration of the resin in the small pores...
 
Does stabilization add strength to wood? I kind of always thought that it just filled the "air space" in the wood to make it *stable* from changes in humidity, but not add strength or structural integrity.
 
Redwood is generally not a hard wood, it can split easily with and cross grain. Stabilizing can help but probably not that much. Perhaps you could carefully glue it with CA but most likely the spiit will show. Sorry.
 
golfer1 said:
Redwood is generally not a hard wood, it can split easily with and cross grain. Stabilizing can help but probably not that much. Perhaps you could carefully glue it with CA but most likely the spiit will show. Sorry.
Click to expand...
It's all good brother. A solid lesson learned that didn't end in the scales popping apart in my Dad's hands! It truly was shocking that a less than 2.75ish foot fall from my table to the floor made it break so easy.

Initially I just wasn't sure if it was a redwood issue or a stabilization issue.. but now I know better haha. Crosscut. Never even crossed my mind! Thanks to all who chimed in! It was a definite moment of panic!!!
 
The way to deal with woods that can split … and any cross grain use on handles … is to put a thin G-10 or Micarta backing on the scales before any work starts on them. Then the scale is much less likely to split or crack. Redwood is a wood that can easily split/crack depending on the direction of the cut and where in the tree the wood came from.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
The way to deal with woods that can split … and any cross grain use on handles … is to put a thin G-10 or Micarta backing on the scales before any work starts on them. Then the scale is much less likely to split or crack. Redwood is a wood that can easily split/crack depending on the direction of the cut and where in the tree the wood came from.
Click to expand...
Thanks Stacy, I will definitely be keeping this in mind from now on. It's funny but it turns out I had never used crosscut wood before haha - it caught me completely by surprise!

I like the idea scott kozub scott kozub had alot and I'm definitely hanging on to this wood for a later project.
 
Cushing H. said:
I would venture a guess that some woods could be suitably stabilized to make a cross grain exposure pretty stable .. but it would need to be a less dense wood so as to allow the resin to really penetrate and give more support between grain striations (kind of like the idea with holes in a tang to produce “epoxy rivets”). This wood was probably just too dense, or not suitably enough stabilized to allow full penetration of the resin in the small pores...
Click to expand...

In my experience redwood is one of the least dense woods out there. I have had K&G stabilize alot of it and never had a problem, have always been completely penetrated . IMO no amount of stabilizing of any wood will make it strong when it comes to end grain. End grain wood looks awesome but stands a real chance of breaking, like Stacy said gluing it to a G-10 liner would give the best chance of making it but its still end grain so expect the worse.
 
Spalted said:
In my experience redwood is one of the least dense woods out there. I have had K&G stabilize alot of it and never had a problem, have always been completely penetrated
Click to expand...
good to know. as I tried to say ... I was running on memory when I wrote that ... and know it could have been incorrect. thanks for correcting.

I will admit I am surprised (but not doubting) that stabilization does not really add any strength to end grain even with full penetration. I am thinking about burls, which have grain running every which way ... and stabilization apparently does a lot for them??? I guess maybe in a burl "grain" is interlocked enough for the resin to really reinforce it, whereas with well defined grain there is always that parallel grain stucture (not interlocked) and the resin just does not have enough strength to hold things together????
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top