Positive and negatives with these wood handles

[CUTS LIKE A KRIS]

Certain woods used on knives look good to me, but are not used much. Could some of you more in the know give me their positives and negative points of the following woods: (stabilized or not)

Pommelle Sapelle
Padauk
Zebrawood
Wenge

Others please feel free to add woods that you are curious about.

thanks
Kris

 

[Phillip Dobson]

Certain woods used on knives look good to me, but are not used much. Could some of you more in the know give me their positives and negative points of the following woods: (stabilized or not)

Pommelle Sapelle
Padauk
Zebrawood
Wenge

Others please feel free to add woods that you are curious about.

thanks
Kris

I've worked with sapele, padauk, and wenge (though not always for handles).

Sapele is very chatoyant and easy to work with. The grain itself is a little plain in a knife handle, but it can be used to good effect if highly figured. It's not the most durable wood, but with care it should hold up with just an oil/wax finish.

Padauk is fairly durable and has good color. Be aware that it will darken a lot with age (to an almost wine-purple color).

Wenge is heavy and hard. It smells horrible to work with and beware of super-splinters.

 

[KnifeMaker.ca]

Sapella's strength is it's wonderful smell - which is normally lost in finish. Padouk is clouds of orange dust - interesting in burl or figured variations, Wenge and Zebra are interesting in grain contrast.

If you are interested in local woods, check out Carrigana for incredible contrast and Manitoba Maple for incredible burls. Add in Poplar Burl, Diamond Willow and (if it's in your area) cedar burl and you will have some of the worlds most beautiful wood within walking distance of your door.

Rob!

 

[Peter Milner]

I've only done one knife in Padouk, beautiful color but the grain is uninteresting. Finishes well. I've got a stock of it I think I'll use for utility type knives.

Wenge has very uninteresting grain and customers don't seem to be taken with it. I have a small stock I will use in base layers for color contrast.

I made one knife with zebrawood for display purposes. Customers loved it and got some orders for it. It was a small paring knife, not sure how it would look in a bigger handle. It finished better than I expected since the board it came off of has a number of splits and seemed soft when I started.

Just some thoughts

 

[CUTS LIKE A KRIS]

Thank you for the information. Rob!- I'll have to get some books on the trees around here, I studied insects not plants.

Peter- Welcome aboard! Thank you for letting me have your first thread.

 

[hellgap]

You have lots of birch in the edmonton area Ide go for a walk in the backwoods with a chain saw. Spalted birch is really nice im sure youll find some nice burl.I have some of those woods but never tried them yet. So I cant comment. I do love Iron wood, sycamore,lepoard wood, suriname snake wood and anything highly figured. I have some thuya thats really nice and a few sticks of Ramin and its really nice.