Suitability of furniture wood for knife handles ?

[faramir]

I was wondering if y'all could shed some light into this: how do woods that are normally used for making furniture fare as knife handle material ? You know, the continental stuff, such as cherry, oak, walnut, pear, ash, elm, etc., as opposed to tropical and other exotic woods that are out of my reach ?

I've seen some beautiful ash and walnut handles so i suppose these work well. What about fruit wood, such as cherry or pear ? They make nice solid furniture but how do they fare in knife handles ?

If you have positive experience with any of those materials pretty please also elaborate on [oil] treatment you used to preserve the handle

 

[J. Neilson]

Ash & walnut can be very nice. I've also used apple and cherry woods but, though they were tough, they were kind of plain looking. I like fruit wood burls alot though. I'm finishing up a primitive with a cherry burl handle that I love. I do have all of my fruit wood burls stabilized though.

 

[adammichael]

I agree with Mr. Neilson. I would have them stabilized before i put them on a knife. It isnt that expensive and it eliminates the frustration of rehandling a knife that you finished last week because the handle cracked at one of the pins. Not that that ever happened to me.

Michael

www.AdamMichaelKnives.com

 

[mete]

Unlike oak or ash the fruit woods have a very fine grain as does hard maple and birch.Ive used maple for carved handles but this was straight grained .I do have a knife of stabilized maple burl which of course completely different.So there is a lot of choice with native woods.