What do you want?

Travis Fry said:
(though I know you said no Australian stuff) Red Mallee Burl. It's my favorite wood to date- super hard, a pleasure to work, and simply stunning.
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I will most likely still get more Australian Burl. I just got real frustrated with my last batch that resulted in about 75% being waste.
Australia has some very cool woods. I just need to find suppliers who process and dry it intact.
 
This was some left over steel and a cheap pen blank I had.
But I love the contrast with the spint wood.
I don't know if I'll be buying new wood in the near future but larger blocks might tempt me.
(blackwood)
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+Royal black and white ebony is beautifull and hard to get as is good figured snake wood (scales)
Very spalted woods are also beautifull.
I have some olive wood burl here and it is beautifull!
I have some unstabilised holly I want to try on a knife for myself to see how it holds up.
 
I like black ash burl a lot.

Also box elder burl. I use a lot of dyed and stabilized box elder burl in red/green/brown/blue/black for kitchen knife sets. Red and green are my favorites.


As to holly, it stabilizes very well, and makes excellent kitchen knife handles. It has a very nice ivory-white color. I have not had any turn amber or yellow in stabilizing.
I use ebony or blackwood for the bolster and butt cap with stabilized holly to get a look similar to Japanese Ho wood handles.

I also turn a lot of stabilized B&W ebony. It makes stunning turnings. One of my favorite items to turn from it is interchangeable tip screwdrivers. The parts for the screwdriver mechanism cost about $5 and the wood isn't too bad in cost ( about $10-15 each counting stabilizing costs). I can easily sell one for $35-40, but use most as gifts. No one looses one of these screwdrivers. I could probably use it unstabilized for these items, but the finishing time and ease alone make the stabilizing worthwhile.
 
Mark, keep your Hawaiian wood connections looking for more of that KILLER kiawe root burl wood you squirreled away in your private stash!
 
Totally forgot about it but if you ever decide to dye some of the redwood black like ya did before I would be interested in some. Not the really intricate redwood but the wavy tigerstripe stuff. It looks very cool with black and the wavy lines end up being almost silver once polished up.
 
I´ve had a picture of a wood called silver vine for a long time.
Never seen it any were else, but is is beautifull
 
Hengelo I looked it up and seems like that is vine that is stabilized in a compressed matter. Kind of like corn husk or seed shells and a few of the others. Not very many places carry it.
 
Thnx, so no wood at all. That explains a lot.
Enough other projects before I even think of getting in to those kind of materials
 
The chickenblood wood (vine) posted in the customs thread is amazing, but I would hate to see the price of it.
 
I've been using more stuff with lines lately, like the quilted stuff vs the burls that are random with circular bunches.
 
It dawned on me that you have presented us with a great opportunity here Mark, and my first post probably wasn't very helpful. So at the risk of looking like a picture posting whore, here are some things I always wish I had more of....

Maidou burl- Most guys have never even heard of this. I wouldn't have, if not for my buddy Chuck at Alpha Knife Supply. One of my favorite woods by far. No doubt there is an extra allure due to it being uncommon.

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Afzelia burl- Another one that always gets the, "What did you call this wood?!?!?" response. I never would have heard of this one if not for Mike Ludeman at WSSI. I bought several blocks of it from Mike around 12-13 years ago at a show. As best as I have been able to "research" it, Afzelia is a very close cousin to Amboyna, but technically not the same. Coloring and figure is just a touch different than any Amboyna I've ever had my hands on. Oddly, many guys have heard of the VERY rare version of this called Afzelia Lay (I have 1 set of scales I've been hoarding for about 15 years, LMAO). This is the burl---

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Amboyna burl- Like the crazy killer, dark, golden, AWESOME blocks I got from you a few years back-

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Ironwood burl like these pieces I got from you... It goes with anything (hand sanded straight steel, hamons, damascus, and has an amazing feel to it).
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Maple burl like this (I'm assuming it has some medium brown die/tint added to the polymer)-
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Snakeskin Sycamore- Love the blocks I got from you-
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African Blackwood in big blocks (Clarinet blanks are great, but not big enough for most of my bigger knives)
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Spalted Oak burl- The first time I saw this stuff, I was with the Bybees at a small Walnut saw mill in CA... took about 2 seconds to fall in love. Most folks don't expect Oak to ever look like this-

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Ancient Bog Oak is another one that goes with just about anything-
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Olive wood isn't something I see on a lot of knives, but when stabilized it's really nice-
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And last, but most certainly not least... You can never have too much of this stuff!!! :D

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Thanks Mark!!! :)
 
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Although I am not posting much in this thread I am reading everything you guys write.
I am very grateful for everyone's input.
Stacy, thank you for the comment about the Holly. I just assumed it would turn amber like the b/w ebony and birch does. Now I will try to find some good white holly and get it stabilized.
Nick, you photo whore. I really enjoyed all the pretty pictures (seriously). The maple burl coloring in your photo can occur naturally with old seasoned maple.
Phil, I sent photos of the curly Kiawe, or is it Kiave? to my Hawaiian wood guys so they can watch for some like I had. Turns out it is kind of uncommon to get figure like that.
There will be more stabilized Ebony, Bog Oak and Maidou Burl soon.
Quint, there will probably be some Black Curly Redwood fairly soon.
 
I got a block of dyed fleck sycamore that turned out like this:

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I really like the light blue and pink in there as it resembles brook trout. I fly fish and have a lot if friends/potential customers who do and would like to do more with it than the one knife I have finished and one in progress. Is this hard to accomplish? I bought all that the seller had which was only four scales worth and he says he hasn't had any since...
 
quint said:
Hengelo I looked it up and seems like that is vine that is stabilized in a compressed matter. Kind of like corn husk or seed shells and a few of the others. Not very many places carry it.
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Incorrect. It is not compressed, but a true stand alone vine material. I named it Silver Vine and am/was only source, but have lost contact with my jungle supplier. Hope to have a new supply for Blade show in Atlanta. Not sure if anyone else has started using the name, but it would be mis leading.
 
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