I have a problem a wood addiction problem

Ty Adams

Ty Adams

KNIFE MAKER
So yesterday I brought home a small cabinet to start storing handle material in. I wanted to be able to have desiccant boxes to control moisture. This morning I start pulling the wood off the shelf making sure that they are labeled and dated. Newest blocks on the bottom oldest on top. I got halfway through when the cabinet was full. So I emptied it on the floor and realized that I do have an addiction.

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My 3 favorite pieces out of this group. Jet black Ebony, Amboyna Burl, and some compression Koa.

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welcome to wonderful world of wood. my workshop has it stored in any spare space. finally bit the bullet this winter. anything that had been around for more than a year, wasn't truly special, and wasn't going to be used soon went in the kindling bucket. that helped a bit. anyone need a 24" x 15" x 4" slab of cherry?
 
J. Doyle said:
Yep...join the club. Cut up the small cabinet for handle material and get a much bigger cabinet. :) :D
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Ha! That's good advice John. I don't know what I was thinking. When I thought that something that would fit on my bench would be big enough! Your not helping my problem. Almost half of that I bought from you.
 
Well it's been slow on the forum today. So I thought that I would post some more of my favorite pieces. We focus a lot on what we do when we make knives. Not things that we enjoy about it. Showing something that we love about it can be a good thing to. Finding a nice piece of wood and being able to put it on a knife is something that I really enjoy. So feel free to add some of your collection here.

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Curl Mango, and 2 pieces of walnut.

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Some dyed spalted maple burl. I have mixed feelings on these 2. They looked cool in the pictures but are a different color then I thought. There is only one thing to do them now. Put them on a knife and polish! The end result will tell the real story.
 
oh man. i can relate. i knew nothing about wood before i started making knives and now i'm a wood junkie.


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John you should post some of your favorite pieces. We all have them. I really don't think you can ever have enough variety. Spoke with a gentleman who ordered a knife and he asked if I could use dessert ironwood burl. Sure I can do that. Do I have any? No! But I will have several pieces in the mail on Monday.
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Just to get the day started. Buckeye Burl, and some Koa still in the rough. It has been stablized but no sanding or polishing on the out side. This piece still shows a lot of figure.
 
I've spent my whole life in the wood industry, so I can relate to this. Knife making has only made it worse.
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I was lucky enough to come across a log of spalted maple and this is the first batch after drying it and getting it cut up.
 
GeneK said:
I've spent my whole life in the wood industry, so I can relate to this. Knife making has only made it worse.
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I was lucky enough to come across a log of spalted maple and this is the first batch after drying it and getting it cut up.
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Nice haul! I wish that there was some place to find stuff like that in my neck of the woods. Are you going to send it off to be stablized?
 
Wow some nice wood, I think you just started the post your cool wood here thread

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Justin the post your cool wood thread is a good idea. Hopefully more people post. Wood is amazing stuff, even the straight grain stuff has character. No 2 pieces are the same.
 
Here is another piece of Koa. This one is roughly sanded to 220 grit and hit with some pink no scatch. I can't seem to get a good picture. The curl is super tight and spots seem to get lost depending on light.


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I have a couple stock blanks with no inletting that dad left me. They're just big flat triangular slabs...with incredible figure.....

Ya know what I've been thinking....right?
 
Smallshop said:
I have a couple stock blanks with no inletting that dad left me. They're just big flat triangular slabs...with incredible figure.....

Ya know what I've been thinking....right?
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Yes! I had a stock maker out of Belgrade refuse to sell me a blank of curly walnut when I told him I was going to cut it up for knife handles. :12:
 
It is impossible to photograph koa, no matter how good the photo, and capture everything that wood has to offer. It really is something special.
 
Tyshoots said:
Yes! I had a stock maker out of Belgrade refuse to sell me a blank of curly walnut when I told him I was going to cut it up for knife handles. :12:
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That's a big steaming pile of pony loaf because knife handles can be as fancy and artful as gunstocks. :D
 
J. Doyle said:
That's a big steaming pile of pony loaf because knife handles can be as fancy and artful as gunstocks. :D
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Yes I tried explaining that to him. He told me he knew someone that made knives and they NEVER used anything that nice. My wife said taking it at gun point while leaving the money on the table wasn't an option either.
 
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I think the reason is more that you can find much figured wood for a knife handle easily due to size and requirements. Finding a nice stock blank where the fore-end is relatively straight with some high-lights and flows nice into the pistol grip area with a burst of waves and high-lights in the butt is much harder. Probably if you sold an exhibition grade stock blank you could buy many more nice scales than that blank would yield....the only thing holding me back right now!

The waves in this thing are so "tight" I know it'd make a bunch of very nice scales....I'll try to get a pic up tomorrow.
 
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