Why not wood?

The weird thing is that I love wood on fixed blades but, for some reason, I've never really cared for it as much on folders.
 
KFU said:
Stelth, I had one made from Ipe. It was extremely hard and made a nice handle. Not much figure or grain on the one I had but felt great and was a nice color.
Click to expand...

It sounds like a good choice for hard use. It's my understanding ipe is used a lot for decking...it lasts for a very long time.
 
I absolutely love great Suriname snakewood - my all time favorite wood, gorgeous fine figuring, glass hard -- however I'm extremely reluctant to have a knife with it. It will crack for any or no reason whatsoever and stabilizing is extremely questionable with it. Unfortunately, it's not usually possible to use the luthiers' technique to get stable snakewood -- air season for about 25 years, then use the bits that are left that haven't cracked -- perfectly stable - no problem. :p
 
mesquite burl has good figure.
Ipe, Jarrah, Cumaru, Tuauri -- not much by way of figure, but durable and stable.
 
I love wood handles. For small folders I like Gabon ebony, for larger folders and fixed blades I like macassar ebony, bloodwood, desert ironwood, etc. All are very hard and durable.

I have a fixed blade that I made with an Ipe handle, it has a nice warm look to it.
 
For Jackknife, my favorite wood scaled , guessing Walnut, TL-29 Schrade. 300
SchradeTL29.jpg

Nice Ebony Buck 314 Trapper
314Ebony.jpg
 
Last edited:
i only have 2 knives with wooden handles, gec with ebony and whatever kind of wood buck used on their 112 in '08.

does anyone know what kind of ebony GEC uses on their tidioute knives?
 
if it was up to me the manufacturers would offer ebony as an option:) Likewise the BFC annual forum knife would be ebony too, lucky for everybody i dont call the shots:)
i have 2 camillus that are ww2 or earlier and both have their dings and one has a crack but they havent been babied and have held up fine. Pretty tough stuff
Bloodwood is also a pretty, very waxy wood i used it to rehandle an old dunlap cattle knife
i love bone, etc. but something about the ebony with the silver and the brass liners, shield just looks pretty classy
gene
 
Wood doesn't hold up as well and bone, doesn't like water, and you for sure don't want to expose it to oil. Wood does pretty good and will last a long time they way most knives are used today, there are just way better materials to use on a working knife.

As far as bacteria goes wood fairs better than man made material in that it kills most bacteria in under 24 hours where some plastics will allow it to live for up to two weeks.
 
Can't explain exactly why, but I tend to favor wood handles over bone. I suppose part of it is the easily seen character and grain of each piece and that no two are exactly alike.
 
Ya know, I've never thought of wood as not being ready for what people call a hard use knife. I think most people underestimate wood. Certainly Buck has had great sucsess with wood since 1963 in the 110 folding hunter. I've seen lots of battered worn Buck knives that the blades are a pale shadow of what they used to be, but the wood was still there. Most Tramontina machetes have wood scales on them, and I don't know of any harder use for a knife than a working machete in central America.

I think wood gets a bad rap.

Carl.
 
jackknife said:
............
Olive wood, cocobolo, rosewood, all have beautiful grain and color. I'd like to see more of it.

Carl.
Click to expand...

I have a lot on knives in wood
I really like the warmth of wood and the grain

Rosewood
Classic in England more popular than bone
In fact I do not recall seeing a bone penknife, mainly rosewood and some Buffalo
When a worker would pull out a penknife it was alway rosewood
Bone was only on tableware


attachment.php


Maple

attachment.php



Cocobolo

attachment.php



Olive wood

attachment.php



Ebony
no pictures :(
 
Last edited:
I do not have issues with wood at all and own a more than a few knives that are hafted in wood, but on a personal basis, I do like the way bone and stag age with use better, but that does not stop me from wooden handles. I am a sick person, I tell ya.
 
I really like wood scales too. I love the way they catch the light and the warm feeling in hand. That said, I have more traditional knives with bone scales than wood (2nd most). Knives with horn/antler material and manmade materials come up tied in 3rd and 4th, just trailing wood.
 
zerogee said:
I absolutely love great Suriname snakewood - my all time favorite wood, gorgeous fine figuring, glass hard -- however I'm extremely reluctant to have a knife with it. It will crack for any or no reason whatsoever and stabilizing is extremely questionable with it. Unfortunately, it's not usually possible to use the luthiers' technique to get stable snakewood -- air season for about 25 years, then use the bits that are left that haven't cracked -- perfectly stable - no problem. :p
Click to expand...

Uh,oh. I did not want to read this. I wonder how GEC treats their snakewood? Maybe I should start carrying my snakewood #48, which is my only wood knife, to make sure that I max use out of it .............
 
heres my two WW2 or earlier knives with the BFC 2010 looks like the old ebony held up pretty good and if you could see the blades on those two cami's you could see they probably saw some use:eek:
gene
IMG_0622.jpg
 
I have a couple of hundred knives - about a third of them have wood handles.

Some exotics like pigeon wood and sneeze wood are really handsome - but the cobo, snakewood, ebony, rosewood and other standards are just as lovely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top