wood?

T

tonycap

Joined
Jun 5, 2009
Messages
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i see all types of wood on this forum. im not familiar with hardly any of them. I use pine,oak and friut tree wood. I look for really dry ones. what kind of wood would be good for me to start learning with?I want to get to know some steels as well. I quess what i do is stock removal. i use files and saws. I would like to learn how to forge as well. best regards-Tony
 
Welcome Tony, lots of knowledge and knowledgeable folks on this forum. In this forum, the 5th sticky down has a newbies post that is loaded with tons of information. I recommend you spend some time to get familar with them. Afterwards, if you have ?'s then post them! Again, welcome aboard. Do you really use pine for knife handles:eek::confused::D
 
You don't want to use pine for knife handles. Oak is borderline too. Of the common woods you're likely to come across in the lumber yard, you can use maple, walnut and mahogany. I really like osage orange because it is grippy and durable and machines well, plus it is non toxic. More popular knife woods are cocobolo, desert iron wood, African black wood and many others that are available as knife scales from knifemaker suppliers. They're very dense, stable, fine grained and visually interesting.

Don't use pine, it is too soft to be durable.

Welcome aboard.
 
When a new maker gets the bug, they often order all sorts of strange name woods and burls. Many are attractive, but not all are good for knives. Soon they learn that the general knife using and collecting public prefers the tried and tested woods - Maple ( Birdseye, curly, quilted, burl), Walnut, Desert Ironwood, African Blackwood, Rosewood. buckeye burl, and box elder burl are some good types ( there are more). In the begining it would be best to stay with these, and avoid problems.

Welcome to the forums.
Stacy
 
I agree with Stacy. I love the rosewood genus and desert ironwood.

A few mentioned will require stabilization. Buckeye and boxelder burl are pretty useless until plastic impregnated. Also, while Eastern maple (Acer Saccharum), is reasonably hard and durable, bigleaf maple (Acer Macrophyllum), is pretty soft.

Be safe and wear a respirator. Some of this stuff is bad news.
 
how about hickory. i got some of that. my friend said something about eucaliptis burl. he said he can give me some-- i dont even know why he has it. he never mentioned it before although his father in law does some sort of wood works. tony.
 
There is nothing wrong with hickory, but it is not often used on knife handles. Sort of plain. Eucalyptus burl is a tropical, and may look good, but has some problems. IIRC, it does not stabilize well.
Stacy
 
Hickory, like pecan, is very tough and shock resistant. It's plenty durable for a knife handle. It is boring-looking, though.
 
Lots of good advise here.

But there is no reason you can not or should not use pine it gets a bad rap because it is soft so just get it stabilized, here are 2 knives I made using stabilized birds eye pine which was picked by the customers.

I would suggest look at what others are using and I would stabilize any wood that is soft which is most north american wood.

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Many older examples of the plain-jane, run-of-the-mill kitchen knives from long standing makers, from Russell, Green River, Dexter, Old Hickory, Chicago cutlery and others all used oak and hickory with great success for decades, and those handles stood up to innumerable washings and exposure to all manner of 'inclement circumstance'. I wouldn't be so quick to write them off. They may not look pretty, but they definitely have a vintage allure to me.
 
Mr MIKE Turner those pine handles kick butt. i never even thought about using pine. very cool--marekz
 
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