Osage Orange Covers - Is it me or is it Memorex

[idahoguy]

One more thing about gluing osage. It's a very oily wood and doesn't glue well unless degreased. I used to use TSP, or lacquer thinner. Then rinse, rinse, rinse, dry. It is THE hottest burning American fire wood listed. Amazing wood.

 

[okbohn]

One question that came up when these #73 Osage Orange Knives first hit the street was; How will they age? Below are pictures of the same knife. Picture one - bare as a newborn's behind and picture two - carried and used almost daily for about 6/7 months.

As seen in the second picture, the knife has darkened with use but not to an extreme amount. It has worn well but the corner of the pile side cover did separate from the rest of the cover but in accordance with my motto "Glue it and use it" that's just what I've done.

I am one who thinks Osage is beautiful stuff. I wasn't fond of the cleaned up look (it took the burnt marks off), but after a while, it turned out great. It looks great!

 

[Mort Canard]

I grew up around a lot of Osage Orange here in Kansas. There are hedges of the stuff all around the country. The wood is naturally prone to cracking due to differential moisture content as it dries. The interior of the wood holds moisture as the exterior dries. This leads to cracks starting at the surface. This is mostly a problem on pieces of wood much larger than the scales we use on knife handles. It impossible to find hedge fence posts more than a year old without cracks that develop as the wood has dried.

The thinness of the scale material means that there is not a lot of chance for the stresses in the wood to develop as all of it has about the same moisture content. I would imagine that the wood might not have entirely dry when it was glued to the metal on the knife and it has shrunk a bit starting the crack.

 

[brownshoe]

Likely not fully dried when made into scales. Its very hard but takes a while to cure out. 300

Absolutely, same as what is said above by Mort.

The cracks are manufacuring or material defects and you should send it in for repair. How else will GEC know they need to change something?

 

[mykel m]

There are some interesting comments by Andy Roy about Osage in this old thread from his forum, see posts 11 and 14.

I love the stuff.

Old and new...and yes that is a check in the bottom handle, no biggie.

 

[Modoc ED]

One more thing about gluing osage. It's a very oily wood and doesn't glue well unless degreased. I used to use TSP, or lacquer thinner. Then rinse, rinse, rinse, dry. It is THE hottest burning American fire wood listed. Amazing wood.

Well, if the glue doesn't hold up, I'll just use the knife with a piece of the cover missing but then again, as people know, I'm just as likely to try a bit of J-B Weld and shape and sand it to fit.