Why?

J

Jerry Bond

Well-Known Member
Why don't you ever see any Dogwood scales? It is very pretty wood but I have never seen any on knives.
Maybe it warps, like gum or something, I don't know.
But I have some and will try it soon.
 
Hey, Jerry, I used some dogwood once to handle a knife,but it was a hidden tang.
Nice wood and hard. Its hard to come by. The wood i had, came from a tree in town.
If you can get it stabilized I think you will be better off,If not try some tru oil.
You will have a nice and usefull knife handle.
Dan
 
Dogwood is a good hard wood. Dur ring the horse and buggy days and before iron and steel were plentiful Dogwood was used for bushings on wagon wheels because it was hard enough to stand up to the constant ware.
My club for straitening and bending without forging is turned from Dogwood.
There is a wilt that is attacking Dogwood trees and causing them to die. Hopefully you can find Dogwoods that have died and will not result in cutting a live beautiful tree.
 
There are dogwoods all over the place down here. I cut one about 5 yrs ago, ripped it up with my chain saw then through the table saw, about 3/4 thick. Put in the shed to dry.Took it out this morning and run it through the planner to about 3/8".
Gonna try some handles with it. Most likely stain it to get rid of the pink.
I was just wondering if it warped very bad.
When I was a kid, me and my papa would cut them for a dogwood mill they had to be 6" on the small end and 5' long
with no knots. Don't know what they did with them.
 
I have a big peice in my shop. It's about 2 years old. It's about 6"X6"X18". I tried to chop a dead one down one time with a machete. It was about 8" in diameter. I got about 2 inches into it, from there it was like a rock. Very hard.
-John
 
Hey Jerry, would you mind posting some pics of the wood you put through the planer? I've never seen a knife with dogwood and am interested to see what it looks like. Sounds like it would be a great potential scale option, I'm very interested to see how it works out!
 
Hay Amcardon--I cain't post pictures.
I tried again this morning for about2 hrs and it still won't work.
I have one hunter ready for HT and I will put dogwood on it and get Murph to post it for me. Sorry I'm so dumb.
Jerry
 
Jerry, I'd like to see the picture too.
FYI, it ain't about dumb either. Different generations do different things. Takes awhile to catch on, if you want to try. My wife has about 3,000 casettes she is saving for some reason? Dozier
 
Here is a knife with Dogwood scales, dyed red, and the piece of Dogwood shown with the knife is the natural color. I have some that has no grain and is just an off white. It is hard wood, but this set of scales did shrink a little bit, even though it was stabilized. I plan to have more dyed and stabilized in differant colors.
100_2278.jpg
 
What I was wondering about is warpage. Do you think stabilizing would cut out the warp if it is prone to?
BTW thanks for posting the picture,got me off the hook.
Maybe------Jerry
 
I have some Dogwood scales in the shop, that I have had for about a year now, and they are stabilized, and show no warpage. I think as long as it is well dried before it is cut into scales it won't warp, but stabilizing would cut the chance even more. If you send it to be stabilized, I would recomend to send it in block size, and cut into scales after stabilizing. Also some of the stabilizing folks, that have done Dogwood may be able to better answer the warpage question.
Dale.
 
Wow! That really looks great! Looks like a nice warm wood that flows nicely (like a lighter ironwood). Thanks for the pics! I might have to try to find some of that around here, I would love to pick up a set of scales and give it a try...
 
I got a block several years ago in a trade. Mine is white. Is this a heart wood / sap wood thing. or possibly two diffrent species of tree?

Thanks and God Bless
Mike
 
Mike, I have some also that is white, and I think it came from the same tree, as the piece in the pics that I posted. The scales on the knife were dyed red, but the piece along with it is natural color. I can't explain the white that I have, other than I may have cut two trees up, instead of one, and could have been a different species of Dogwood. I am going to send my white to Woodlab.biz, to dye and stabilize.
Dale
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top