Whats your favorite woods for knife handles?

Don, Claro is also known as Hinds walnut and is native only to Northern California and is fairly rare in the wild. It is used as rootstock for English walnut in commercial nut groves, where they let the Claro tree sprout from a planted nut and then graft English to it's root system. Bastogne walnut is supposedly the 1 in 100 tree where they think that a "pure" Claro tree used for seed stock was fertilized by the pollen of an English walnut tree. Luther Burbank called those "paradox trees." I think that the black walnut you have in Missouri is native Eastern black walnut, whereas the "black" walnut that the Mormons planted in Utah was actually common walnut of the Circassian/Turkish/Russian/Persian/English kind that was brought over from Europe. It is still planted as a nut and not grafted to indigenous black walnut root stock like Claro or Eastern. Some Eastern/Claro graft wood is apparently sold as Bastogne, but it ain't. It is a pure black walnut hybrid. I think that technically, a lot of the walnut that guys like us use is some form of black walnut or black hybrid unless you are getting that stupid expensive Circassian wood from Turkey or some French walnut or can score some of the Utah wood. It is pretty expensive what what I have seen. Most, if not all of the native walnut species in the Americas are some type of black walnut and their is a lot of it, although my neighbor who restores old furniture tells me that ANY walnut is kind of pricey nowadays..
Don Hanson III said:
No, two different species . I believe Claro originally came from Europe.
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African blackwood is my absolute favorite wood to work with.
I've been using a bit of masur birch lately, softer and lighter in weight than the tropical woods but has a beauty all it's own.
I really like a good piece of figured sugar maple, too... much harder than the other maples I've used and looks beautiful with an aqua-fortis finish.
 
DanCo said:
Texas Ebony
Walnut
Snakewood
quarter sawn lacewood
huisache
mesquite

not in that order exactly but they are my favorites.
Dan
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Dan, Where do you get the huisache? Online or Local? We have lots of it but all new growth around here.
 
panch0 said:
Dan, Where do you get the huisache? Online or Local? We have lots of it but all new growth around here.
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Sent you a PM. But It was in the Hill Country. It is hard to find big trees, most people hate the stuff and try to get rid of it around here. Just like Osage, around here if you see one in a pasture or on someones property, ask if you can cut it down and they will ask how soon can you have it gone.
Dan
 
jdm61 said:
Don, Claro is also known as Hinds walnut and is native only to Northern California and is fairly rare in the wild. It is used as rootstock for English walnut in commercial nut groves, where they let the Claro tree sprout from a planted nut and then graft English to it's root system. Bastogne walnut is supposedly the 1 in 100 tree where they think that a "pure" Claro tree used for seed stock was fertilized by the pollen of an English walnut tree. Luther Burbank called those "paradox trees." I think that the black walnut you have in Missouri is native Eastern black walnut, whereas the "black" walnut that the Mormons planted in Utah was actually common walnut of the Circassian/Turkish/Russian/Persian/English kind that was brought over from Europe. It is still planted as a nut and not grafted to indigenous black walnut root stock like Claro or Eastern. Some Eastern/Claro graft wood is apparently sold as Bastogne, but it ain't. It is a pure black walnut hybrid. I think that technically, a lot of the walnut that guys like us use is some form of black walnut or black hybrid unless you are getting that stupid expensive Circassian wood from Turkey or some French walnut or can score some of the Utah wood. It is pretty expensive what what I have seen. Most, if not all of the native walnut species in the Americas are some type of black walnut and their is a lot of it, although my neighbor who restores old furniture tells me that ANY walnut is kind of pricey nowadays..
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Thanks Joe! That was an education. I have always grouped Claro with English, good to know the difference.
 
For me at least, the darker woods seem to sell best and since I prefer to leave the natural color on my handles that means black walnut, ironwood, blackwood & cocobolo are at the top of the list. The only walnut that I use is either crotch or root wood (hard to find a sawyer who is willing to cut a root ball anymore) as it is more attractive as well as being much harder than the main trunk wood.

Black walnut can be especially beautiful also if you are lucky enough to find some with mineral streaks in it. [The best that I ever got was from eastern Kansas that had the most beautiful purple streaks.]

Gary
 
Agreed, I love the look of black walnut when it has that beautiful purple look.

I haven't had a chance to sample a wide variety for handles I've done and of those I've really enjoyed working with them all. Osage Orange hits top marks though for overall workability and finishing. I've never seen a wood that polishes almost like glass with nothing more than ultra fine sandpaper and polishing pads.

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Shaughnessy said:
I've cut a few. Never thought I would see someone post something about Braemar. I grew up pretty close to there. Maybe a drive by is in order. I would ask permission first tho, if its nice ....... Larry

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Almost 100 percent sure it's just left there, waiting for the front end loader destined for the big ass stump grinder.

Might be a turd, but at 40 mph it looks pretty gnarly and big.
 
Gary Mulkey said:
For me at least, the darker woods seem to sell best and since I prefer to leave the natural color on my handles that means black walnut, ironwood, blackwood & cocobolo are at the top of the list. The only walnut that I use is either crotch or root wood (hard to find a sawyer who is willing to cut a root ball anymore) as it is more attractive as well as being much harder than the main trunk wood.

Black walnut can be especially beautiful also if you are lucky enough to find some with mineral streaks in it. [The best that I ever got was from eastern Kansas that had the most beautiful purple streaks.]

Gary
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Gary, that's one reason I like Black Walnut over the others. Love the purples and reds in some of it. The local stuff here also seems harder and it stabilizes well.
 
Don, I think that the Eastern black that you get has a great balance between a lot of figure without having to pay a kings ransom, not so much yellow color like you sometimes see in some English or Turkish and it appears to be harder than comparable claro. It may be a second choice for high end gunstocks compared to "marble cake" English/Turkish, but for knives, I think it is better because the figure seems to be tighter so it shows well in small pieces. I was very surprised to learn that Bentley uses American black walnut as opposed to English for the interior veneer in their cars.
Don Hanson III said:
Gary, that's one reason I like Black Walnut over the others. Love the purples and reds in some of it. The local stuff here also seems harder and it stabilizes well.
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Black walnut is my favorite also. All the walnut that I have was sawn off my uncles place in Ashland MO. Lots of red, and even some green striping. The last handle I just finished turned out looking like chocolate pudding. Its got three coats of Formbys in it now and is just beautiful. I like using mahogany too. Kinda soft but lots of flash.
 
My favorite is Bocote. Its just the right combo of hard, and oily. Not too big a pita to work either. Cocobolo and Osage are staples I use a lot. I don't use a lot of Ironwood because of the gunky way it gums up belts, files and sandpaper. Sucks to drill it too. Sticks in the bits and makes me nuts. Some guys like the smell of it, but to me it gets in everything, and is hard to get rid of the smell.
 
Maybe i am weird but i am a big maple fan. I have seen more varieties of maple than i have of any other wood. Sometimes all in the same piece.
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Aside from maple, i love redwood. I am not a big fan of unfigured woods, so i guess any cool, figured wood, be it burl or curled or spalted...I am a fan of them all :D
 
I don't find that burls work like the rest of the wood from the same tree. The Maple burls I've worked haven't really worked like Maples I've used in other instances. Maybe its because they're stabalized. Same with Redwood. Other woods I just don't have the experience to know the difference. Also, I don't like working stabalized woods at all. And, I don't have good luck with them being 'stable' even though I only buy from the best. I find they warp worse than unstabalized (stable variety) woods with heat, and warp less with moisture. The biggest reason for me though is that they're slippery and plastic-ey feeling. They're REALLY slippery when they're bloody. They make the sale price of the knife high enough that I don't feel like folks will use the knife. I see them change hands a lot on the exchange. I make knives with 01 steel. The steel isn't going to stay pretty forever, so I wind up cleaning up and re-grinding knives that have never been sharpened. I offer this service for free on my knives, and this is the only instance that I really dislike doing the work. Anything can happen when you put that knife back onto the grinder. If I screw it up, I get to replace a very expensive knife that has never, and likely will never be used.
 
I tell folks they can have any kind of handle they like as long as it's some flavor of maple (BOG) Just kidding.
As far as walnut goes, in our part of the country , you see very little walnut being cut, mostly due to the fact that sawdust is a secondary income for most mills. Horse people don't like walnut chips as it poisons their horses. I generally have to beg someone to cut walnut when I find some good pieces.
 
Calvin Richardson said:
I like using mahogany too. Kinda soft but lots of flash.
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It's a shame that the Santa Domingo mahogany played out 100 years ago. It had a hardness that would rival most walnut and some of the most beautiful burls that you will ever see. [I guess that's why Victorian furniture makers used so much of it.] It's one of the few woods that I like better than black walnut. The entire head board of my Victorian bed is one big bookmatched burl of it. The color is such that I thought that is was walnut when I first saw it in the antique shop until I realized that it had a slightly more red color. Unfortunately the only mahogany that is even close to it now is in Cuba and you know what the chances are of getting any from there are. I'm not much of a fan of the Philipine variety that is available now.

Gary
 
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