Question for Wood Handled Knife Lovers - Does this bother you?

BarberFobic1992 said:
i would think that if they used, say, 40 ton automotive epoxy, the wood wouldnt move. thishasnt been a problem with me, but that might be because i havent had most knives for more than a year. in stick tang knifes though, ones that i have had for several years, i havent noticed anything.
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wouldn't that cause the wood to crack? i'm not sure it would, but i do know that on some older guitars with ebony fretboards, and mahogany necks(glued together), that instead of just expanding, and contracting together, the ebony will develop cracks.
 
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i store my wood handled tools in a bucket of linseed oil/turp to prevent the wood form drying out. My place is very dry,and it takes about a week for a hammer head to loosen off the haft. A soaking in the oil/turp every few weeks takes care of that.
 
Wouldn't bother me at all unless it effected the comfort of handling the blade.
When I purchase wood I expect it to behave like wood.
Same as I don't mind patina on my carbon blades
 
I have several knives that have done this. I have made a few of them.

What I find that slows the process, besides using stabilized wood, is a mix of Boiled Linseed oil and Birchwood Casy's oil gunstock finish. I have them mixed about 50/50 in a old Mayo jar.
When finishing a handle I just dip my finger in there and rub it the best I can all over and into the pores of the wood. I then wipe as much as I can off and let it sit for a few days.
I do this 3 or 4 times. Letting it set out and full dry, not putting it in a sheath or directly in the sun.
Does it still happen? Yes, but the sealed handles do it much slower.

Unfortionately, it is part of working with the materials.
 
I agree with what has been said about preferring synthetic handles but as stated this movement happens with all materials in my experience. I look at rehandling as part of a tune-up. It's just part of knife use in my opinion.
 
It would bother me. I love the looks of wood, but I totally prefer Micarta for my goto blades. I have never noticed anything like that with micarta, but Ive heard of it....
 
Hey guys..
Brian, yup...it drives me crazy. I prefer wood over micarta, as far as looks and feel, but the difference between the slabs and steel annoys me enough that I am staying away from wood right now. I am really liking hidden tang leather handles...they are very comfortable, and look great. I dont have any issues with hidden tang, since I dont use my knives to do anything particularly demanding other than cut.
 
Some woods are better , some worse.I use beech (Fagus Sylvatica) now,and I have no bad experiences, as it was with the oak (Quercus robur). Walnut (Juglans regia) is excellent wood for handles, once it dries it gets very stabile, and some woods seems like to shrink forever. Sometimes soaking handles in linseed oil can help, and sometimes I've used hot lanolin (Adeps Lanae), with good results.
 
I like stag, bone and even have an ivory knife.
Those materials 'move' more than wood.
Right now they look like the photos above, by mid summer they'll be fine.
Before you worry about them too much, wait till the summer humidity arrives.
You could also try keeping them at the bottom of the closet where the temps might be more consistant.
I had real problems keeping my knife chest on top of my chest of drawers.
When the heat came up, the temp changes were much more drastic.

There is a 'care' thread pinned to the top of the custom sub-forum that is worth a read.

FWIW, as I understand it, (YMMV yadda yadda) properly stabilized wood is more like a chunk of plastic or rock than wood. I have one piece in stablilized tiger maple that doesn't even have that warm wood feel.

As for the knife above, the shrinking away from the spine, photo 1, while it isn't good would pain me as much as the gaps where the scale has pulled away from the tang, photo 3.

In my experience, none of my micarta has shrunk at all.
Again YMMV :D
 
Brian, one more vote for "it would bug me"...and it's even happened to some degree with my micarta handles...which I thought couldn't happen :-) I'm wondering now if there is a special epoxy that would hold against shrinkage or a better technique to use with micarta and liners.
 
I love the look of wooden handles on knives. If that were to happen to one of my knives, I would only have an issue if it were either A. A safe queen (which I own none of) or B. it affected the overall performance of how the knife felt in hand.
 
I'm not that fussy about it as long as it didn't interfere with grip comfort.
 
I recently got my first Fiddleback (osage contacting the handle) and a Denim in Wenge and both have shrunk from the tang. If it bugs me enough when I get them in the bush then I'll have a trip to the grinder for a couple of seconds and they should be good. The separation from the handle may start to bug me if I was in your situation, but would probably just use a wood dust/crazyglue combo to fill them in.
 
Dannyboy Leather said:
In my collection are a few knives made when this country was new. Some of the horn handled knives were made before the percussion cap era and the mountain men. There are some examples of wooden handled knives in the collection made during the 1840's to the Civil War Period of the 1860's. All of these are still perfectly usable and durable with very little handle shrinkage (horn handles have had noticeable shrinkage). This says something about the nature of the old-growth woods they used for knife handles. I much prefer the old-growth materials harvested decades, generations ago, for furniture and archery projects, knife handles, because of minimal shrinkage and cracking.

I have two newer knives (full-tangs) with walnut handles made from an old barn beam. This beam was about 130 - 140-years-old. I have owned these knives for many years and the handles receive no special attention (users). There has been no observable shrinkage with these handles and they are as tough as nails. Too, I have a knife with scales made from an ancient old-growth log raised up from the bottom of one of the Great Lakes. It, too, has had no shrinkage or cracks over the years. BTW, I live in a VERY dry environment where most everything shrinks a bunch. I store my guitars and wooden stocked guns in a room with a humidifier to keep them hydrated. :)
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Yah know what? Now that I think about it, I have a GreenRiver that has a wood handle..I wipe it down with mineral oil from time to time, it has very little problems. As for my Barkies that shrink, I think that perhaps the handle stock wasnt moisture checked before use..maybe. I have had 2 Barkies shrink on me, and several handle slabs in general come loose..I know that they have great customer service, and all that, but because of these issues, I am a believer in corby bolts and other fasteners over the old pin and glue method. I am just thinking out loud, and this goes for micarta slabs as well. I just no longer trust pins to hold under tough use, no problems for a skinner or something..but I look for versatility in my blades.
 
It wouldn't bug me if it was a factory user. If it was a custom from a maker that's a safe queen it would bother me a whole lot.
 
Grapevine said:
It wouldn't bug me if it was a factory user. If it was a custom from a maker that's a safe queen it would bother me a whole lot.
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I think I feel the same way but would put it differently- the more I actually use the knife, the less it would bother me because it is fulfilling a different role. If I never use a knife then its just eye candy- (aka appreciate it for its aesthetic value)- and if its eye candy, then this would matter.

But let me also say, Ive never spent over $200 for a knife nor do I make knives - so my experience is limited as is my knowledge concerning whether this is acceptable behavior or whether the makers should know better.

just my .067 (recession adjusted) cents.
 
If you are using dry wood to make your handles, then it will shrink and expand a bit. but it will not keep shrinking more and more.
as humidity levels increase, the handle will expand back.
were you in a dry season when you took the pictures?
as a woodworker, my advice to any of you who makes knives, would be to fit, shape and glue the wood to the metal in a dry room (air conditioners work fine for lowering humidity in a shop). so that the wood is at its "smaller" size when you glue up. then, if the air gets more humid, the wood will expand, and shrink if the air is dry. but it will not shink to less then it was at the time you shaped and glued the scales on.
here in my woodshop, I try to glue at 43% humidity. nothing higher than that, because we have a harsh dry season here, sometimes it gets as dry as 13%. and that means trouble to me if I glue pieces together at something higher than 45%.
I hope this helps.
 
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I've had a few like that.

Had a few that came like that.

You can minimize it by not getting your knife handle wet and then dry. Also if you slog a lot in the wood it will become more impervious.

Most of the home done ones I have had shrunk less. Maybe cause it takes me so long to do them. But in general I've got a lot of customs that gapped way more than my amateur ones brand new. A lot of times people get in a hurry and you do have to work realy intensively with wood scales to get them totally flat.
 
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