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Old 03-25-2020, 03:31 AM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Now live in Las Cruces NM.
Posts: 1,345
I got into major trouble at my job over Ironwood.

I was gifted a couple of branches of Desert Ironwood and took them to my metal working job to cut on our big bandsaw. The bandsaw was purposed for brass and aluminum, not ferrous metals. I set it up to cut 1/4 inch slabs and when I was done the blade was shot. My boss was rather disturbed by my wearing out a $35 blade so I had to hand sharpen the whole blade with a India Stone. Took a couple of hours, but the Ironwood wore out the blade 10x faster than brass or aluminum. If it starts to smoke then you need to resharpen the tool you're using to cut it, it's dull. The funny thing is is that it dulls everything. Great handle material and I'm going back to AZ to try and score some more, but travel is restricted, so time will tell.
Well worth it though when you see its final finish. I've used African Blackwood, but although it is as dense as Ironwood it seems more moisture absorbent, but that just may be me. I use both and used African Blackwood on a knife handle for my grandson and he thought it was plastic! LOL
Some woods do not need to be stabilized and others do, but the super hardwoods don't and I add the hardwoods like cocobolo in there because of their oiliness, which is minor to me anyway. If using an oily wood for scales be sure and wipe them with a solvent that makes the oily side clean.
Blood wood is very oily and a glue of any kind doesn't want to stick to it, it must be wiped very clean. Just some tips. I noticed epoxy didn't want to stick to those oily woods, just a heads up.
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