Wood you use this?

Brock Cutlery

Brock Cutlery

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Jan 10, 2015
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I have this oak I had stabilized by K&G recently. This is the medullary ray oak that I am pretty fond of for handle material. It has great and differing grain top to bottom and side to side. Very cool stuff, with wonderful color as well.
So some of it had some old insect activity, which left it full of these small black holes randomly through the wood.
This piece appears to have some spalting in it as well.

I tend to appreciate the character. It reminds me of range land fence posts, old cabin wood, and just a general rustic woodsy character.

Would you use this as handle material?

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GM John. The holes are not filled due to the thin epoxy needed to penetrate the hard oak. They are mostly open currently, so would have to be filled.
I use Acraglas on my handle mountings, so easy to dye black and fill I would think.
 
I think that would look pretty awesome with a nice forge finished drop point hunter, or the like. If you put it on a some new styled fighter, it would look funny.
 
I agree, it fits a hunter. I do kitchen knives... I think it will work, but might limit my group of buyers. You have to have the vision to appreciate this wood.
 
You let me know if you want to try a stick Hoss. I'd be really interested to see what you might do with it. :)
 
Oh heck yeah use it. Hoss is right. You had two identical knives side by side one with that and one with out the "rusticity", I betcha the one with would sell first.
 
I like that a lot.
Make sure the style of the knife goes with the rustic look of the wood.
Go brut-de-forge or leave the rolling-skin :)
 
Those look like Powder Post Beetle holes. If that wood came from your lumber stack, you might want to check through it to make sure you don't have an infestation.
 
I vote use it. I use epoxy with wood ash mixed in to give a charcoal grey/black semi transparent look. Less obvious than solid black.
 
My brother and sister in law have a suite of furniture that have that "ray" figured oak on the front of all of the doors, drawers, etc. and no holes. ;)
 
jdm61 said:
My brother and sister in law have a suite of furniture that have that "ray" figured oak on the front of all of the doors, drawers, etc. and no holes. ;)
Click to expand...

White oak tends to get this figure quite regularily. Cut it half sawn rather than quarter sawn for best presentation of rays. Most woods show best figure when quarter sawn.

Catholic Church pews are traditionally half sawn oak.
 
I appreciate all the comments and suggestions. I sent in a box of various oak cuts I made from log stock.
Here are a couple of the larger and less 'rustic' blocks, top and side views. These are very rough looking, just back from K&G and not sanded yet.
There is a bit of color variation that makes for a good variety of selection for a particular project.
I love this wood. I guess it is overlooked because it is not as exotic as some woods, but to me it is wonderful stuff, full of character. I'm not going to overlook this gem. :)

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Nice. How did you do the "facets" on the handle? They all appear to be roundover.
 
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