Organized list of Handlewoods

hellspawn415 said:
I hope you dont mind if i dont cover Oak and maple, i consider those pretty self explanatory, but the other have some interesting qualities.

Persimmon: Technically, persimmon is an Ebony! No, really! The heartwood is often rather thin "1-4 inches" but it can often be irregular, and many beautiful peices can be made from blends of the sapwood "called white ebony" and the darker, stronger heartwood. Make sure to stabilize it as it normally has a VERY high level of movement.

Walnut: One of the only low price woods that has a deep, brown color. Some information i have learned is using it so much for these years at the shop is that bulk walnut is treated differently than most. At most good shops the walnut will be a dark purple/ black/ grey color. This is because most walnut is steam treated to blend the sapwood into the heartwood, leaving the cooler color. Some walnut, like slabs, are treated normally by kiln drying. These are left with a beautifully warm deep rest red that fades to a warm earthy brown. Most walnut is from the black walnut tree, grown for lumber. However sometimes you get Claro walnut, from fruit baring trees is more expensive and rarely steam treated. It is much more likely to have burl, curly or crotch figure. There is also a very interesting form that can occur when claro walnut is grafted onto english walnut, at the joint a blend of color and texture occurs known as marbled walnut. you should really check it our.

Cherry: Cherry is on the softer end of domestic spectrum, though still quite pretty. It normally has a rather pale reddish cream color that deepens with age. It can be seen with BEAUTIFUL curls that can beat out those of maple. At the shop we once got a full order of regular cherry that came curly as hell. we stashed it in the back and gave it out to customers who were real cool people. you will want to stabilize this stuff, as otherwise it can take a lot of small dents.

Hickory: While not to interesting to look at, this stuff is the strongest domestic there is. It has a great janka rating and will not pick up many dents. It also as a slightly finder grain, and can take some nice handle carving work quite well/

Sycamore: While plain/ flat sawn syc is pretty boring, quarter sawn shows a massive amount of medula rays, the same thing that makes quarter sawn oak and lacewood pretty. The pattern can be very very dense sometimes, but the wood itself is not all that strong. Another definite candidate for stabilization.
Click to expand...

Thanks for covering those. I really appreciate it and think this is very interesting. In St. Louis, there is a wood place and the guy is open 2 times a month for 4 hours each time. All his wood is old trees in the city limits that are blown down or have to be removed. He goes and will cut the trees into lumber and store it. So you can find some strange stuff there. Like 3 different types of oak. My question with the oaks, are they all treated the same? I currently have burr oak, red oak, and white oak. All qtr sawn. The burr oak is more of a dark cream color. I would guess they would all finish the same since they are all quercus. But I just want to make sure. Does it need stabilization? Or can I use it natural?

Also, the cherry I have was rated AAA at the place i got it and it is qtr sawn. I've not heard of this before, is it rare? The Rays are smaller than sycamore Rays and not holographic like oak Rays. It looks neat though. Will it finish out good?
 
viral said:
Thanks for covering those. I really appreciate it and think this is very interesting. In St. Louis, there is a wood place and the guy is open 2 times a month for 4 hours each time. All his wood is old trees in the city limits that are blown down or have to be removed. He goes and will cut the trees into lumber and store it. So you can find some strange stuff there. Like 3 different types of oak. My question with the oaks, are they all treated the same? I currently have burr oak, red oak, and white oak. All qtr sawn. The burr oak is more of a dark cream color. I would guess they would all finish the same since they are all quercus. But I just want to make sure. Does it need stabilization? Or can I use it natural?

Also, the cherry I have was rated AAA at the place i got it and it is qtr sawn. I've not heard of this before, is it rare? The Rays are smaller than sycamore Rays and not holographic like oak Rays. It looks neat though. Will it finish out good?
Click to expand...

Bur oak is just a type of white oak with a slightly finer grain. Oak is pretty stable "theres a good reason we use it in everything," so its ofton not required to be stabalized. The AAA grade just means that it is clear of knots and other deformations like ingrown bark. Quarter sawn cherry is not to common, but it should perform about the same. It should finish up ok, but everything is relative. For a domestic it will be good, but if you compare it to coco or something it would seem coarse. All relative.
 
Looks like a tutorial on walnut is needed. Jurglans Regia also known as English walnut, French walnut, Moroccan walnut, Circassian walnut, Himalayan walnut, etc originated in Persia. It was popular enough that seeds have been found in a village in Switzerland that are over 9000 years old. It was a thick shelled walnut that people turned into a thin shell by gradually planting the shells of the thinner ones found. It is the standard eating walnut the earth over. The Romans were particularly fond of it and took it wherever they went (conquered). When first seen by the native English, they named it "weahl" nut meaning "strange" nut in old English. It is a white wood like maple when younger and then when reaching 15-18" diameter, black lines start in the center and work their way out. The white wood is not sap wood except near the bark.

It was brought to the Americas and is known here as English walnut. We have walnuts in America which includes American walnut in which only the sap wood is white. It is of two basic colors, red and gold. In California, there is the famous "Claro" (Spanish for "bright") walnut which resembles black walnut except for brighter secondary colors like yellow, red, black, and in Oregon, green and purple). The are many sub varieties and also include butternut. There is also the famed "Bastogne" walnut, also known as "paradox" and "bastard". It is a cross between English and black or Claro. It is exceedingly fast growing but produces few nuts. It will reproduce but no more than 4 times before becoming sterile. It is generally exceedingly dense, often has broken fiddle and generally a green tone. English always in production is grafted upon American, claro, or bastogne rootstock which is less receptive to bugs, disease, and rot. The areas where the grafts come together can be very beautiful as the two types of walnut are different colors and are often highly figured in that area.

For some reason, walnut can turn an ugly dark gray when treated. I have lost many beautiful pieces that way. For this reason, I generally use an oil finish on grips.

Probably more than you wanted to know. I sell gunstock wood, so I have studied it a long time.
 
Any idea what this stuff is?
image.jpg

I thought it was some kind of iron wood, but I'm pretty sure that's not right. Sorry for the crappy picture, might be hard to see properly.
 
Gendry said:
Any idea what this stuff is?
image.jpg

I thought it was some kind of iron wood, but I'm pretty sure that's not right. Sorry for the crappy picture, might be hard to see properly.
Click to expand...

Hmmmm. Not ironwood. To much red and purple. Could be dyed elder or buckeye burl/ The colors are not natural, at least as far as i can tell from the is picture.
 
Peter, is "claro" the California Walnut species? My understanding is that the natural range for that pure California variant was very tiny when compared to the much more widespread back walnut and, of course, the original natural range of the Persian/English trees. Also, I know that the most desirable walnut for traditional high end stock makers is still the old world stuff. But I seem to recall that the paradox/Bastogne was desirable to some. Is that still the case or is everyone pretty much paying outrageous money for the Turkish/Circassian wood??
PeterB said:
Looks like a tutorial on walnut is needed. Jurglans Regia also known as English walnut, French walnut, Moroccan walnut, Circassian walnut, Himalayan walnut, etc originated in Persia. It was popular enough that seeds have been found in a village in Switzerland that are over 9000 years old. It was a thick shelled walnut that people turned into a thin shell by gradually planting the shells of the thinner ones found. It is the standard eating walnut the earth over. The Romans were particularly fond of it and took it wherever they went (conquered). When first seen by the native English, they named it "weahl" nut meaning "strange" nut in old English. It is a white wood like maple when younger and then when reaching 15-18" diameter, black lines start in the center and work their way out. The white wood is not sap wood except near the bark.

It was brought to the Americas and is known here as English walnut. We have walnuts in America which includes American walnut in which only the sap wood is white. It is of two basic colors, red and gold. In California, there is the famous "Claro" (Spanish for "bright") walnut which resembles black walnut except for brighter secondary colors like yellow, red, black, and in Oregon, green and purple). The are many sub varieties and also include butternut. There is also the famed "Bastogne" walnut, also known as "paradox" and "bastard". It is a cross between English and black or Claro. It is exceedingly fast growing but produces few nuts. It will reproduce but no more than 4 times before becoming sterile. It is generally exceedingly dense, often has broken fiddle and generally a green tone. English always in production is grafted upon American, claro, or bastogne rootstock which is less receptive to bugs, disease, and rot. The areas where the grafts come together can be very beautiful as the two types of walnut are different colors and are often highly figured in that area.

For some reason, walnut can turn an ugly dark gray when treated. I have lost many beautiful pieces that way. For this reason, I generally use an oil finish on grips.

Probably more than you wanted to know. I sell gunstock wood, so I have studied it a long time.
Click to expand...
 
Claro walnut was originally limited to a small section of the California coast. Due to the beauty of the wood, planting expanded throughout California and Oregon. It is NOT used as an orchard wood as it is one of the thick walled shell varieties except for a few varieties of various walnuts that have been tediously selected to produce thin shells. They are not widely grown but do exist. Claro IS one of the rootstock walnuts used in Orchards as it is less susceptable to rot/bugs/disease. There is another type of Cal coastal walnut, one in Arizona and one in Texas. Butternuts are also a type of walnut.

American black walnut of both the red and golden variety were the choice of American gunmakers (maple & cherry in the flintlock days). Mid 20th Century, the beautiful Claro colors were the wood of choice. There is always a jump in hunting following a war and many custom makers started business following WW2. In those days, English walnut was not thought as beautiful as Claro and orchards taken out were BURNED! But then, the custom makers discovered that English worked much easier than Claro, black, and Bastogne. You could sometimes get 32 lines per inch checkering. If you took a knife to a long square edge of a blank, you would get one long sliver out of English and many chips out of the other varieties. You could use rougher tools and not get chips pulled out. As a result, the custom makers saved a huge amount of time (thereby making more profit) by using English. The bottom line was that they convinced magazine writers (generally a slow witted bunch) that it was, by far, the preferred wood for gunstocks and it went from the fireplace to the mantles. Today, the best pieces (in wet blanks) can go for many thousands of dollars.

By the way, Turkish walnut is NOT Circassian walnut which is actually Russian. They call it that for salability reasons. They also call the walnut they get from Enland, America, Pakistan, Bulgaria and elsewhere "Turkish Circassian". European walnut is all Jurglans Regia, although there are numerous varieties like Frankia (the current French walnut), Mayotte (Circassian), etc. UC Davis has an orchard of over 100 varieties of the 4 main types already mentioned.

Bastogne usually has a high per centage of broken fiddle and often has a beautiful greenish color. It is very dense and often used for big magnums. Like English, it can have a lot of wood that is white without being sap wood.

As the burl guy has stated, there are many variations in woods and some do not match the qualities or colors usually associated with given types. Always judge the piece in front of you.
 
I like black walnut and would like to use it for handle scales. Is it a good choice? Does it need to be stabilized? What is the best way to finish it?
 
Peter, I have seen some very high end guns in London at places like Purdey and Asprey where the stock wood was highly figured "marble cake" as you would expect, but it had fair amount of yellow in it, which I tend to favor less. Is that just another color in the heartwood?
PeterB said:
Claro walnut was originally limited to a small section of the California coast. Due to the beauty of the wood, planting expanded throughout California and Oregon. It is NOT used as an orchard wood as it is one of the thick walled shell varieties except for a few varieties of various walnuts that have been tediously selected to produce thin shells. They are not widely grown but do exist. Claro IS one of the rootstock walnuts used in Orchards as it is less susceptable to rot/bugs/disease. There is another type of Cal coastal walnut, one in Arizona and one in Texas. Butternuts are also a type of walnut.

American black walnut of both the red and golden variety were the choice of American gunmakers (maple & cherry in the flintlock days). Mid 20th Century, the beautiful Claro colors were the wood of choice. There is always a jump in hunting following a war and many custom makers started business following WW2. In those days, English walnut was not thought as beautiful as Claro and orchards taken out were BURNED! But then, the custom makers discovered that English worked much easier than Claro, black, and Bastogne. You could sometimes get 32 lines per inch checkering. If you took a knife to a long square edge of a blank, you would get one long sliver out of English and many chips out of the other varieties. You could use rougher tools and not get chips pulled out. As a result, the custom makers saved a huge amount of time (thereby making more profit) by using English. The bottom line was that they convinced magazine writers (generally a slow witted bunch) that it was, by far, the preferred wood for gunstocks and it went from the fireplace to the mantles. Today, the best pieces (in wet blanks) can go for many thousands of dollars.

By the way, Turkish walnut is NOT Circassian walnut which is actually Russian. They call it that for salability reasons. They also call the walnut they get from Enland, America, Pakistan, Bulgaria and elsewhere "Turkish Circassian". European walnut is all Jurglans Regia, although there are numerous varieties like Frankia (the current French walnut), Mayotte (Circassian), etc. UC Davis has an orchard of over 100 varieties of the 4 main types already mentioned.

Bastogne usually has a high per centage of broken fiddle and often has a beautiful greenish color. It is very dense and often used for big magnums. Like English, it can have a lot of wood that is white without being sap wood.

As the burl guy has stated, there are many variations in woods and some do not match the qualities or colors usually associated with given types. Always judge the piece in front of you.
Click to expand...
 
View attachment 522415
Don Hanson has provided us knife guys with a lot of very pretty Missouri black walnut over the past few years. It makes for a very nice handle. Here is some that I used in 2008. I bought a South African sourced London style stock refinishing kit from Brownells a few years back and that is what I still use. I know that other people have had very good luck with TruOil.
Lo/Rez said:
I like black walnut and would like to use it for handle scales. Is it a good choice? Does it need to be stabilized? What is the best way to finish it?
Click to expand...
 
Walnut either needs to be finished or stabilized. I make custom gunstocks so finishing is not a problem for me, but stabilizing is faster and easier. There is one problem with stabilizing walnut. Sometimes the finish color turns out to be a very ugly dark gray...sometimes with streaks. Until I discover why, I'll keep 15 sets of (once) gorgeous feather walnut scales which were RUINED by stabilizing. That is $1500 worth of scales ruined.

The best guess I have been given is that because the polymers used in stabilization are expensive, they are reused (and reused, etc). They darken. Some materials turn to crap when this is done. Walnut is the one with which I am familiar. Until I am satisfied that this won't happen to the next batch, I'll not try that again.

As for finishing, sand down to at least 220 grit. Finishes can be oil, polymers, epoxies, etc. each are treated a bit differently, but you can follow suggestions given for rifle stock finishes. One quick and easy one is spray can Deft. It is a lacquer. Apply a thin coat and it might dry in 4 seconds. Apply thickly and it will run and take a long time to dry. Tru-Oil is another good finish. Apply a coat and it might take 4 hours to dry. In a humid environ, it might take overnight. When dry, you can rub with 0000 steel wool then apply another coat. Do this until satisfied. Some finishes will appear to dry until the first hot day then turn sticky. Danish tung oil is one of these. It must be applied a drop at a time then thoroughly rubbed in. This is another finish one best not apply thickly. Linseed oil has an old suggestion: apply once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, once a year forever. It had no hardeners. Now some is called "Boiled Linseed oil". It is not boiled, it has hardeners added like Japan finish. PS: Do NOT boil Linseed oil. The boiling temperature and auto ignition temperature are very close together.
 
You might think that Jarrah:D is a pretty hard Aussie wood but we have fare harder woods. Bull oak is listed as the hardest wood in the world but it has a few cousins that would be pretty close . One of them is Balar , or black oak. I sent a few bits to Mark from Burle source and he couldn't believe how hard and heavy it was. Polishes like glass and completely stuffs wood saws in 10 seconds flat. Shee oaks , Coobar , Mulga , Vine wood and Western dead finish, Myall and the Gidgees are all hard and beautiful.
As for Gidgee you are right about it being either plane Jane or fantasticly figured. The reason is that hiding within all the plain Gidgee is a sub species that has the rings in it. You might go 50 mile in any direction and find five or six trees with rings in them all together and then nothing but plain trees, then another clump of them. Our hot ,dry arid conditions make slow growing, hard as hell, beautiful woods plentiful in Australia.
 
I just wanted to jump in here and say a big "THANK YOU" to hellspawn for the write up. And also a big "THANK YOU" to PeterB for the walnut information. BY FAR my favorite woods are Claro, Bastogne, and "Turkish" walnut, but had no idea about any history or anything else. I do not like stabilized walnut at all, much preferring the oil finish.

THANK YOU!!!!
 
As for colors in Jurglans Regia (European walnut), This has a large variety in type and subtype. Current French walnut has the expected dark lines and mottle with the background color being yellow. This type is generally called Francotte. It is the most desired color by the majority of stock buyers. This was produced as best as I can determine starting around the beginning of the 19th century. I base this less on gunstocks and more on furniture. The wood that it replaced was a gray-backgrounded French. The best gunstock wood is added on after the tree reaches about 3 feet in diameter. English is rather slow growing so the Francotte was developed likely in the early 18th century. This was, or perhaps, is a common color now in England. Also seen in English rifles is a color of English that comes close to the golden American black walnut. Sometimes it has little in the way of the desired dark lines. English from other parts of the world seems a bit more like Circassian but with thinner dark lines (for the most part). The densest English (I use this as the general term for Jurglans Regia) seems to be from America and Australia and New Zealand. There are regional differences in density and color due to subtypes, climate, soil types, growing conditions and soil chemical composition.

The French are know to stress the trees tying them to one side or another to create fiddle in the wood. They have also been known to add various chemicals to the soil to promote various colors.

Older trees tend to gradually produce less nuts. As a result, American orchards tend to be removed now before the trees reach a size conducive to producing the best wood for gunstocks, etc. IRS laws were changed to promote clearing of older orchards and the planting of new. This has led to more and more wood being imported.

Size can vary considerably. Bastogne is the fastest growing. I knew of one 90 year old tree that was 12x15" in diameter and whose canopy covered two acres. Three branches were three feet in diameter 100' from the base of the tree where they touched ground and rerooted. English grows much slower. And it all depends on the local growing season, soil, water supply, etc. The big one was a few miles South of Redding, Cal.
 
PARKERKNIVES said:
I sent a few bits to Mark from Burle source and he couldn't believe how hard and heavy it was. Polishes like glass and completely stuffs wood saws in 10 seconds flat.
Click to expand...
I remember that piece. Felt like I was holding a chunk of metal. and yes, it eats saw blades.
But it was a cool looking piece. If I remember correctly I gave it as a gift to someone who's name starts with Nick W.

I sure wish I could find some more Tasmanian Blackwood like those holographic pieces you sent me.
 
The figure on Sheoak burl looks like something out of an H.H Giger painting. The Alien's pancreas or something like that. :eek:
 
Mark the wood that Nick got was some Gidgee from my personal stash, he deserved it. The Balar is much lighter in color but definitely harder. In the next month I will be tracking down some more Tassy Blackwood. If I can get enough I will send some over to you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top