Wood for handle

I'm gonna be a jerk and say "lignum vitae". Not sure I would have the tools or the patience to shape the thing though! :(
 
It is very difficult to get real lignum vitae now. Importation is banned. I made a handle out of the Argentine Lignum Vitae - and it isn't that much of a problem to shape with a spokeshave - the blade just needs to be sharp.
The wood does give off a pleasant odor when you work it, and it makes you light-headed.
I am prone to skin reactions to wood, but none to lignum vitae.
 
Guyacayan IS Fantastic looking wood but to make it look that way requires fair bit of work.
It almost has to be polished up, then just the right finish applied but with the work comes pay off.
this isn't mine, it is a friend's who lives in Puerto Rico but the handle is Guayacayan on a CS Culloden
DSC02075.jpg

The tree grows naturally on PR and he has a big tree on his lot there.
There was a storm a year or two ago and a couple of large branches fell of of the tree.
That is where this wood came from... It looks great IMO

Why is importation of this wood banned?
 
I like cherry, rock maple, red cedar, cypress, pecan, and beech.

I'd love to have one of the larger HI knives with a nice European or American Beech handle. Beech has a grain pattern similar to laminated wood. With a mahogany dye/stain and a tung oil finish, it's gorgeous.

Sycamore would make a great chopper handle. It has an interlocking grain pattern that makes it naturally resistant to splitting.
Sweetgum would be good that way, too. It just doesn't have any grain pattern that I've been able to find. If you want an ivory colored wood, it would be sweet.


You can buy Brazilian cherry cutting/chopping boards at Wal-Mart. I thought about getting the chopping board (~1.5" thick) to make handles from.

I have a nice piece of mahogany that was given to me by a cabinetmaker. I'm thinking about making a silk purse out of my ATL Cutlery khuk. I want to make new pins/washers, bolster, and pommel from brass, scales of mahogany, and polish and blue the blade.
Or maybe I should just buy a blade and bolster from HI and make the scales/pins/washers/pommel myself. The HI IS a much nicer knife.
Besides, the ATL Cutlery khuk is the one I'll abuse. I like my HI knives way too much to abuse.
 
arty said:
It is very difficult to get real lignum vitae now. Importation is banned. I made a handle out of the Argentine Lignum Vitae - and it isn't that much of a problem to shape with a spokeshave - the blade just needs to be sharp.
The wood does give off a pleasant odor when you work it, and it makes you light-headed.
I am prone to skin reactions to wood, but none to lignum vitae.
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Ahh, well then. I was under the impression that is was incredibly hard wood and reasoned - in my own inexperienced way - that working with it would be just as hard. :D
 
I throw an Lignum off cut in with boiling water to make a tea whenever I am coldy/fluey. Seems to be invigorating & health giving to me?

It think it works easily even though harder than nails because it so full of a dryish but oily resin that it cuts like a hard cheese with a sharp chisel.

The old growth reclaimed stuff is wonderfull, lots of bowling bowls used to be made of it.;)

Spiral
 
Not sure how hard it is, but snakewood is beautiful stuff.

Just found some info that it is very hard stuff. It has a specific gravity around 1.36. For comparison, desert ironwood is about 1.2, and balsa is about .17
 
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Yeah, snakewood is great looking but about double as expensive as african blackwood. For a 3" by 3" by 12" block of african blackwood, i'd be looking at around $125. For comparison, olivewood is ~$55, jicarillo(still in the snakewood family of trees) is about $25-$35, gabon or black and white ebony ~$65-$70, monkey pod is $35(edited, wrong on initial thought =)), and desert ironwood is ~$98. Cocobolo is about ~$25, and geunine lignum vitae is ~$26.
Wood is expensive unfortunately, but I'm trying to get some olive, jicarillo, and monkey pod (possibly), and maybe, just maybe, some african blackwood(or desert ironwood, haven't decided which I like better).
 
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hmmm... I am not sure how I posted that gibberish...
I have edited it to this now so I don't have to live it down :)

all I remember is waking up with my face full of keyboard... :o

guess it must be bedtime. ;)
 
lignum vitae* was used in large low rpm propeller ships as a bearing material, inlaid into the stern tube bearing with a packed & slightly leaking seal, it had the properties needed to allow water lubrication of the steel prop shaft at the hull penetration while also resisting the water and providing quite a long wearing life (20+years), it is the hardest wood. supply problems, high speed props needing more expensive and complex oiled metal bearings and tight seals and polymers have mostly killed off the use of it now. you used to be able to get it in staves from shipyards from the scrap where it had been replaced. i remember many trips down the shaft tunnel to check the shaft bearings and the stern tube as well as the depth of water in the bilges...
bearings2.jpg


*-link to supply of real bearing grade lignum vitae, excerpt from the site:

Lignum-vitae, The Vital Wood.—The propeller shaft of every battleship, every destroyer, every transport, in fact, every large steamship, revolves in a wooden bearing at the stern end. Of all the thousands of woods in the world, true lignum-vitae, a native of the West Indies and certain other parts of tropical America, is the only one that has been found equal to this exacting service. The peculiar properties which so well fit lignum-vitae for the purpose are due to the arrangement of the fibers and the resincontent of the sap cells. The fibers never run straight up and down the log, but weave back and forth in a serpentine manner that cross and crisscross like the corded fabric of an automobile tire. The result is a material of extreme tenacity and toughness. When the sap cells cease to function, their every nook and cranny become filled with a resin which is about a third heavier than water. The result is a material which weights about 80 pounds per cubic foot.-Engineering World, Oct. 1, 1919.
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So, I've finally decided what wood I'll be getting and what the shipping to Nepal will approximately cost.
Now, I also want to include a single block of wood to give to HI so they can make something for a DOTD or something like that. Yangdu said I could ask you all what you would want from http://westpennhardwoods.com/index.php (thanks for whoever suggested that by the way).
Preferably under $50 but I could make an exception.

The one's previously listed within the pricerange are as follows:

osage orange
wenge
bocote
narra
bubinga
genuine or argentinean lignum vitae
purpleheart
jicarillo
burmese blackwood
honduran rosewood


I want your input, so please post with what you would like to see :).
 
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Goncalo Alves, Cocobolo or Birdseye Maple of the 3 I'm a sucker for Cocobolo but as has been mentioned some people are dangerously allergic to it ( I don’t have problems working it but Walnut gives me flu like symptoms) then it would have to be Birdseye Maple rocks and with a stain or fire to help enhance the grain it really shines. Goncalo Alves is cool wood and Smith & Wesson used to make revolver grips out of it but it isn’t a really interesting grain. All 3 are hard enough to use without being stabilized.
BrokenEye, Cool deal sending a second piece:thumbup:
 
I'm just looking forward to getting a chance to shark something with the wood he sent. :)
 
warty said:
I'm just looking forward to getting a chance to shark something with the wood he sent. :)
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Lol, I havent sent it yet, and I won't until I know what guys want in addition to the olivewood im sending for myself. So hurry up and give suggestions, other than cocobolo (don't want kamis hating me if they get an allergic reaction). IMO, bubinga or narra look good, but I'll leave it up to you all.

Personally, I'm ordering a 16.5" ASTK with olivewood being sent for the handle. If there's enough left, the R7 ill be ordering will have it to. Might even be enough left for another kukri, who knows.
 
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I've given four others besides cocobolo and I was the first to raise the concerns about cocobolo as a choice.

I don't know what you want from me? :)

Should I just post a list? ;)
 
warty said:
I've given four others besides cocobolo and I was the first to raise the concerns about cocobolo as a choice.

I don't know what you want from me? :)

Should I just post a list? ;)
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lol, sorry. I'm trying to get others involved but they dont seem to want to. I'll go back over them all and list the ones within my pricerange in my 2nd to last post
 
I was just messin' with ya' anyway...

I will do whatever I can to help with this as it seems like a darn good idea.
 
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