Teak Scales

T

tim37a

Joined
May 18, 2010
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I am curious - why don't people use teak for scales. It holds up well in wet environments, it looks nice (well, not as nice as some burls), it isn't too expensive, and it's easy to taske care of. Just give it a coat of teak oil every so often.
Tim
 
I think it looks boring IMHO. I am sure it is very funtional as a wood, and would work fine on a knife, but why spend a bunch of time making a custom knife look as nice as you can and put an plain set of scales on it. Everything speaks, and boring wood "screams" unimpressive. Just my two cents...
 
Teak sure isn't as common as other more decorative woods, but it can be just as nice. I have a custom rigging knife with stabilized curly teak scales I picked out personally, made by Daniel Fairly.

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Teak used on boats is rather plain, but it has to be to be strong when needed. I race sail boats semi professionally and have worked as a rigger and done boat repairs for a long time. I'm very familiar with teak, I like it, that's why I chose teak for my rigger. White teak is more common in figured varieties, but if you do some looking around you can find it.


-Xander
 
AKS added some teak burl that is absolutely incredible. I may get a couple blocks!
 
Hey cool knife! :D

I think it isn't used a lot because top notch figured teak is hard to find for sale. It is known as being tough to glue but with new epoxies it can be done with full strength.

I'm a big fan of teak and like the look and tough qualities. I'll be using some more soon.
 
OTK said:
AKS added some teak burl that is absolutely incredible. I may get a couple blocks!
Click to expand...

That's where this block came from. There is a couple sellers on eBay selling large burl blocks for a reasonable cost every so often, it is white teak, but it green and needs to dry before being used and stabilized.

Issues with gluing traditional teaks can be dealt with by "bleaching" with oxalic acid first to strip some of the oils. "Whiting" works well to, I believe it is Sodium Carbonate (don't quote me on that, my memory of it is vague!). I only trust West Systems epoxy 105/205 or 105/207 for gluing raw teak on my boats. Certain fillers can be used without noticeable effects to bond strength. Collodial Silica aka "micro ballons" works well as does powdered graphite.

Stabilized teak has shown no adverse effect to most normal knife making epoxies that I know of.


-Xander
 
So yes, most of teak is very plain grained. On the other hand it is extremely serviceable, and finishes easily. If you are a new maker or selling inexpensive knives, I believe woods like this, walnut, and many other common ones depending where you live can be the way to go. Frank
 
The very thing that makes teak a good, sustainable lumber also does make it boring. Teak apparently grows to a usable size much more quickly than a lot of tropical hardwoods and it apparently grow like made as a commercially farmed/invasive species in countries it is not native to like Costa Rica. I'm not sure if they are still doing it, but Costa Rica was giving tax breaks to people who would buy existing cleared farmland in the forest and grow teak. While it is not a native species, it is apparently better for the ecosystme than some other crops. The bad news is that the strong straight grain teak that works so well for stuff like outdoor furniture and decking on high end sportfishing boats looks pretty boring on a knife handle.
 
Frank Niro said:
So yes, most of teak is very plain grained. On the other hand it is extremely serviceable, and finishes easily. If you are a new maker or selling inexpensive knives, I believe woods like this, walnut, and many other common ones depending where you live can be the way to go. Frank
Click to expand...

Frank, the thing about walnut and particularly the various American walnuts, is that since we use small pieces, we can get GORGEOUS "leftovers" that are big enough for knife handle blocks and scales but would be too small or too weak for high end rifle or shotgun stocks and big not big enough to slice into fine veneers.
 
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