Knife handles

[Hunting Man]

I have made the move to go up in expense for the knife handle materials. I found on line some highly figured Hawaiian Koa and walnut wood. I could have purchased a new gun for what these small blocks of wood cost. I want to make myself two knives and hopefully I can do the wood justice. I'll post a picture of the wood before I start sawing on it. Heck the wood dust should be worth something. I never knew how pretty Koa wood is or how expensive it is. The walnut looks like the sun is bursting through it. Maybe the son will get a Christmas present to remember his ole Dad by.

[tator]

Good luck to you HM. Do you all have alot of walnut trees up there in Ohio? We have alot of them here in Missouri. In fact, my father in law and I pick up 1,000's of walnuts every year and go out and replant them. We have a special "dust" that we dip the walnut in before planting it so that the squirrels don't dig them up and eat them. Walnut is probably the highest priced logging tree here in MO.

[Hunting Man]

Ohio has a lot of walnut, trouble is finding the burl from the stump areas. That's where all the fancy stuff is.

[gfdeputy2]

HM not a lot of walnut hear in NH but we do have a lot of hardwoods here
seems like every other cherry & Maple have burls on them
yes they are the best for making stuff like that

[flexj]

burls??? someone explaing this please.

[Hunting Man]

burl usually comes from stumps or knobs on the side of trees. The figure will be outstanding like rays of sunlight, star bursts ect. When you see $4000.00 double barrels they most likely will have burl walnut stocks. When i look for knife handle woods a lot of sellers advertise like: highly figured, burl, the terms a lot of times means the same thing. Sometimes you see wood described as striped, this is figure and not grain. Burl is the wood that changes like a prism when you move it around in light.