Sources for inexpensive handle material and woods that do not need to be stabilized

milkbaby said:
Bocote is my favorite underappreciated handle wood. Even the relatively boring pieces can look really nice, and it's pretty cheap in comparison to some other woods that are hard and oily. Here's an older knife I made with bocote:
c7nwaMah.jpg



I know they've been mentioned, but if looking for cheap, African blackwood and katalox are inexpensive if you look around for a good source and will probably hold up even better than bocote. Every now and then I've bought these three woods for $2 to $3 for blocks or scales. But it's hard to match bocote for the most visual bang for the buck at $2 a knife in my opinion. All the bocote scales in the pic below I bought for less than $10, some of them were less than $2!
1yhXdd5h.jpg
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Lol. I think that was the price point I was looking for. That's some great looking wood.
Has anyone tried teak and made it look good. I have several 6/4 boards that someone sent me from a closed wood working shop. They are worth a bit but I'm not sure what to do with them.
 
skillgannon said:
Lol. I think that was the price point I was looking for. That's some great looking wood.
Has anyone tried teak and made it look good. I have several 6/4 boards that someone sent me from a closed wood working shop. They are worth a bit but I'm not sure what to do with them.
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Yeah. I love teak. I use it for all sorts of stuff. It doesn't have insane grain patterns, but I think it looks great, especially with a satin oil finish; it is tough as nails and essentilly impervious to water. It makes great handle material, and if you want to spruce it up a bit, throw in an inlay or something.
 
skillgannon said:
Lol. I think that was the price point I was looking for. That's some great looking wood.
Has anyone tried teak and made it look good. I have several 6/4 boards that someone sent me from a closed wood working shop. They are worth a bit but I'm not sure what to do with them.
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Teak is a bit softer than black walnut, which many consider the softest wood appropriate for knife handles without stabilization. I can’t imagine that teak would take stabilization as it is quite oily. It might be ok on a kitchen knife ????? Teak end grain cutting boards are highly desirable though. 6/4 boards are perfect for that application.
 
valknut said:
Thanks for this idk about their quality but just got some African blackwood for 9 bucks!
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From what I have gotten from them it has been very good quality. What I recieved was better that what was in the example picture.
After seeing those curly maple handles I checked it out and you can get a bookmatched set for $3.
 
If you want some highly figured flame maple check out places that sell blanks for mandolin necks. I've found 5A grade in 2"x2"x up to 24" long for around $50. Might be a chunk of change but there are a LOT of scales in one piece.
I too like the quality from bell woods.
 
Willie71 said:
Teak is a bit softer than black walnut, which many consider the softest wood appropriate for knife handles without stabilization. I can’t imagine that teak would take stabilization as it is quite oily. It might be ok on a kitchen knife ????? Teak end grain cutting boards are highly desirable though. 6/4 boards are perfect for that application.
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I like that idea. Real teak is crazy expensive. It's kinda neat to feel, every cut feels like it has a coat of wax. It's awsome for boats but seems boring for a handle unless you did something crazy. Do they mix it with something else like holly or just straight up teak ? I'm going have to look that up. That one expensive cutting board.
 
DanF said:
If you want some highly figured flame maple check out places that sell blanks for mandolin necks. I've found 5A grade in 2"x2"x up to 24" long for around $50. Might be a chunk of change but there are a LOT of scales in one piece.
I too like the quality from bell woods.
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Thanks. I want to mess around with the acid cooked maple. Maybe I will buy some cheap stuff first .

What I have is some 22" pieces of big leaf maple that I should have bought all of but didn't . A local woodcutting place had them as a special deal and I didn't realize how great they were until it was to late.
 
skillgannon said:
I like that idea. Real teak is crazy expensive. It's kinda neat to feel, every cut feels like it has a coat of wax. It's awsome for boats but seems boring for a handle unless you did something crazy. Do they mix it with something else like holly or just straight up teak ? I'm going have to look that up. That one expensive cutting board.
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Some are all teak, some mix with walnut, cherry, or maple to contrast, or all four together. They typically sell for $300.00 plus. I’ve got a Wenge and Zebrano cutting board, if you want to talk about expensive. I wouldn’t recommend Wenge for anyone else, as it’s on the hard side. You can see it here:

A41D3CDD-6B93-4582-BC78-AD24B5386AC6 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr
 
Willie71 said:
Some are all teak, some mix with walnut, cherry, or maple to contrast, or all four together. They typically sell for $300.00 plus. I’ve got a Wenge and Zebrano cutting board, if you want to talk about expensive. I wouldn’t recommend Wenge for anyone else, as it’s on the hard side. You can see it here:

A41D3CDD-6B93-4582-BC78-AD24B5386AC6 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr
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We need a drooling emoji. That thing is awsome. I hope it is used and appreciated ....and sung to sleep at night.:oops:
 
w4xm6W7.jpg

These are the style of knives I want to build. As you can see they are simple and don't require large scales. The rivets won't be like that on the next ones though :( I hope
 
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