Handle Material

[JediOkie]

Okay I am working on putting together my third knife for the second time (long story about bad epoxy). I was thinking of using red oak as a handle material; however, it is regular wood. Not stabilized or Dymonwood. What are the special considerations I need to factor into the handle with this choice of wood? Or should I just order some more stabilized wood for the handle and move onto a different knife until it comes in?

[Mike Turner]

I have not used either of those woods, personally I would get some stabilized wood.

Mike

[AcridSaint]

I would think that the oak is going to be a little soft, I don't think that non-stabilized woods are necessarily bad, but you want dense, stable woods. Walnut would be a fine choice, in my opinion. I'm planning on using some oak that I have laying around for a knife project but I'm planning on letting it soak up a lot of oil or minwax first. Debating now between linseed oil (which I have had some good experience with outside of knives), tung oil or minwax.

I'm sure other people have better ideas, but there you have my newbie ones.

[Ray Rogers]

If you are into wood finishing - and that is a very complex subject - then the red oak is no more of a problem than most woods. Many makers will only use natural wood with meticulously applied hand rubbed finishes that really look great if you know how to do them. Bully for them.

For the rest of us, there is stabilized wood. There is nothing better, more reliable, better looking, or easier to work with than stabilized wood in my opinion. I get a lot of natural wood, including oak, but I always send it out to K&G to have it professionally stabilized before it goes on a knife. Ironood is one of the few exceptions and sometimes I even send that out too!

So, depends on how you feel about this knife. If it's just something you're making to bang around with then any handle is fine. If you want it to last for decades and not come apart, get some stabilized wood or have your oak stabilized ....

[JediOkie]

Thanks guys that answered my questions.

[NJStricker]

Finishing wood is not that difficult! Oak would be fine for handle material, especially if you find a source of quarter-sawn lumber. Many fine knife handles have been made from trees from someone's back yard.

Here's a link to finishing gunstocks: http://riflestocks.tripod.com/

Click on the link for refinishing old stocks, and the links within for sealing, finishing, and applying the final coats. The same principles apply to furniture and knife handles as they do for gunstocks.

[NuViking]

Check your local lumberyard for wood hardener. lots of wood carvers swear by it for there soft and hardwood finished projects.

[JediOkie]

Originally Posted by AcridSaint

I'm planning on using some oak that I have laying around for a knife project but I'm planning on letting it soak up a lot of oil or minwax first. Debating now between linseed oil (which I have had some good experience with outside of knives), tung oil or minwax.

Okay I let the red oak soak in boiled linseed oil for about 1.5 - 2 weeks. I have it drying out right now, but there is some sort of plasticky/waxy residue on the wood. I figure it will com off with sanding but wanted to check to see if it was anything to worry about. Also there is a little bit of a funky smell. I have been handling it with gloves on as I have heard it is pretty mean stuff. But I also saw in "How to Make Knives" that Moran used linseed oil on his knife handles.

[AcridSaint]

The plastic-like film is pretty much what happens when you soak them in the oil, don't worry about that. You can try to sand it down or try to polish it, I guess that would be up to you. I never liked the outer layer too much because it's always looked a bit yellowed to me, so personally, I would sand it. It's not bad to handle after it's dry, of course, just wear a respirator when you're sanding on it.

I'm sure some other foks here have more experience than the little I have with the oil, but there are my thoughts.

[RICK LOWE]

Stabilized woods are great to work with and remove any doubt about shrinking or cracking. Doing it yourself can become a pretty messy job. Many of the native hardwoods can be used realy well without stabilizing. Walnut, maple, osage orange and oak make great handle material without needing stabilizing. Be very sure that the wood has had time to dry completely ( can take a couple of years) before you use it. The above mentioned woods only need finish sanding and several coats of tung oil, teak oil, or danish oil to stay good on a knife. The handle on the picture is old red oak with 3 coats of danish oil and furniture wax top coat. That wood is so hard that it smoked a brand new bandsaw blade cutting it out. Wet sand with the oil across the grain with 400g paper to seal the pores and then let the next two coats soak in and wipe down. It helps to rub with 0000 steel wool and then apply wax. Give it a try.

[J. Scott]

Jayson,
The funkie smell is one characteristic of red oak. Some smell worse than others. ( in a shop I used to work in we would get hold of a bad smelling piece we called it cat sh..... Oak.)

Another item of interest , cell structure in white oak is different than cell structure in red oak. Red oak will continue to expand and contract with moisture in the air, while white oak does not aborb the humidity as readily and will not move as bad.

[JediOkie]

I am A LOT less worried now. When I pulled it out and let it dry the first night then came back in to a flacky, funk smelling set of scales I was sure that I had done something bad and my wife and I were going to die of linseed poisoning...or something like that.

[JediOkie]

Well I found out that if your bandsaw blade does not have enough tension on it, it tends to 'walk' a little and ruin the handle material you are trying to rip into two pieces leaving you with 1/2 and 1/4 instead of two 3/8 pieces. I wonder how black walnut would look with red spacers?

[jdm61]

curly maple is the great fallback. Bill Moran discovered late in his career that you didn't even have to use those exotic wood stains on it. Just use some Fiebing's leather dye and whoop up on it with boiled linseed oil for the finish and it looks fabulous. Walnut looks great and finishes easy. But some of the figured walnut, like Claro burl, can have some little voids in it, which is not a problem you have with maple. i would say that straight grained oak won't have that problem either. It won't be flashy, but it should be pretty tough. Try to find some OLD english oak somewhere. You can find some of that with some figure.

[JediOkie]

Originally Posted by jdm61

curly maple is the great fallback. Bill Moran discovered late in his career that you didn't even have to use those exotic wood stains on it. Just use some Fiebing's leather dye and whoop up on it with boiled linseed oil for the finish and it looks fabulous. Walnut looks great and finishes easy. But some of the figured walnut, like Claro burl, can have some little voids in it, which is not a problem you have with maple. i would say that straight grained oak won't have that problem either. It won't be flashy, but it should be pretty tough. Try to find some OLD english oak somewhere. You can find some of that with some figure.

The original idea was to go with something I had on hand, which was red oak. Plus since the knife is for my step-dad, red oak is one of his favorite woods. Since then I have gotten some black walnut and some cocobolo. I will probably go with the walnut.