pau ferro as a wood choice

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mitch8

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Oct 11, 2010
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i have used pau ferro(Morado, Bolivian Rosewood, Santos Rosewood) for a few knife handles now and i have really liked it so far. it sands and cuts easily, accepts wax easily with good results and it seams to be fairly closed grain. i was wondering why i haven't seen this wood on other knife handles. is it just the fact that its exotic and not carried by many wood distributes or is there some disaster looming that i haven't been warned about?

thanks again,
mitch
 
The Pau Ferro I have is rather plain. For me there needs to be a lot of high contrast and activity for a wood to be a good aesthetically pleasing handle. Though I like blackwood and bloodwood. Don't use them much but I do like them.
 
Like pretty much any of the rose woods it will make a great handle. Like Richards said it is usually pretty straight grain, now the grain lines are usually well defined but none the less not alot of burl looking activity. It polishes up really nice and is a good strong hard wood. Heck I think my buck 110 has that stuff for its scales and they still look great after being on my side non stop for the past 7 years of my naval service which can put a knife thru some abuse.
 
I have a piece sent to me as Bolivian Rosewood. Lite brown/tan background with purplish stripes. Is that similar to what you have?

I cut some to use but have'nt got there yet.

I like it.
 
I have used it quite a few times too. It finishes well, makes a great knife handle but as others have mentioned, not really exciting. Its one of those woods that looks really good in larger applications, like a guitar, table etc. A knife handle is just not a big enough canvas to show this wood off well.
 
i've been pretty happy with the looks of what i've found for pau ferro peaces. i'm glad to hear that its durable to! i will probably keep using it because i like the strait grain on a contoured handle. i haven't quite figured out how to make a figured grain look good on a knife yet.
 
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