Padouk wood

[Marcel J.B. Morin]

Hi:

Does anyone of you use Padouk to make knife handles and if you do, what is the preferred method of finishing. Thanks to all for your advice.

Marcel

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[John Yeackley]

I use an oil finish. This lets it age to a deep golden orange. It won't stay the bright orange for very long. If you want it to stay that bright orange I'm not sure how to achieve that. It does machine well.

John Yeackley

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http://www.toptexknives.com/yeackley.htm My contribution to the world of knife fanatics.

 

[C L Wilkins]

Padouk is very porous with quite a bit of open grain. It will tend to darken with age. I would try a little wood bleach on a test piece and see the results. It definitely needs to be sealed.

A friend of mine used it on a knife once and I must admit that there is nicer wood available IMHO.

C Wilkins

 

[jeffj]

I agree with C Wilkins, I have been looking at a lot of exotic woods lately and Padauk is very opened grained and less dense than some of your other choices. Although, when I bought the two pieces I own, one was the normal open grain and the other was a very dense burl with no open grain...I'm saving this for a special project. It looked like an orange tiger maple with the density of a medium weight rosewood. So you can find special pieces out there, but best bets are the denser rosewoods (cocobolo, blackwood, kingwood, tulipwood).

jj

 

[meteogeek]

I have used this wood on a folder kit that I gave to my father in-law. I really like the vibrant orange color. I used super glue as the finish since I wanted to maintain as much of the original appearance as possible. It came out looking pretty good. Another finish that you might try is boiled linseed oil with a bit of beeswax melted in...an idea passed on to me by Darrel Ralph. I used this on a bois 'darc (osage orange) handle recently. It darkened just a bit, but I've been advised that the beeswax will slow/halt the darkening process.

>> DeWayne <<