Wood for scales

[BushBerks]

Hi,

After following these forums for a while, I'm starting to feel inspired to make a knife! I'm just at the researching stage now and was wondering about the process of prepping wood (preferably found in local woodland etc.) For the scales..

Can anyone recommend any good resources that I should take a look at?

Thanks
Scott

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[Robson Valley]

If you can, take a look at lots of wooden handled knives to see how the grain runs.
From those, you might get a sense of where in a log the scales were split/sawn out.
Likely all hardwoods as they sand more effectively than the shredding that can happen with soft/conifer wood.
Alder here goes from cheese to bone when it dries out. Good for your application.
What are your chances to score some seasoned, knot free & straight-grained hard firewood?

Cut the fresh pieces over long as end splitting (2-4") is almost inevitable. Peel off all the bark, easiest when the sap runs in the spring.
Paint the ends with anything (house paint, carpenter's glue) to slow down the rate of water loss from the open ends.
If it's big enough pieces, you might split a few lengthwise. They dry faster and it relieves some of the shrinkage stress with water loss in drying.
How long? Wood carvers usuall assume 1"/year, dried outdoors under cover but not cooked in a shed.
For example, a 4" stick ought be good to work with in 2+ years (2" in to the core.)
Hand tools? Power tools? depends on what you have.

Me? For building up wood carving tools, I can buy mahogany and rosewood off cut junk 1/8" thick from the guitar industry.
I do some sort of a glue-up and plane that down to shape and size.

Size? In a fist grip on the assembled knife, the tips of your second and third fingers should just touch the fat ball part of your thumb.
From a square blank, that's at least 3/4" x 3/4". 7/8" square is ideal, 1" square is too fat, even for my big hands.

 

[Nice65]

Seasoning is key. Allow a year per inch of wood, end grain sealed with PVA glue or paint as pointed out above. Firewood or joinery offcuts are a better bet IMO. Even better, some ready made scales from a knife supplier. Grain will be matched, and some woods will have been stabilised with resin which fills the natural pores.

 

[David LaFerney]

If you are building a showy custom knife then you can get really nice affordable wooden scales all over the internet. If you want something nice, but not flashy then kiln dried scraps of any hard stable wood (walnut, maple, cherry, etc) from a wood shop work great. If you want to use wood that you harvest yourself you need to air dry it for a long time, and then depending on what it is you might need to stablize it. However, knives had wooden handles for an age before anyone ever thought of stabilizing it.

Be sure to show us your result!

 

[BushBerks]

Thanks for all the replies. Lot's of useful info there.
I know I could order the scales in, and probably will do at first (now that I see how long it will take to dry the wood out!), but like the idea of creating something using locally found wood, supplied by mother nature.
Is artificial drying an option? Or is that overly complicated and expensive?

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[quietone]

I still have a lot of spalted birch in my wood stacks. I've rehandled a Mora 2000 with it. If it's any use, I can send you some bits to use foc if you like, just PM the sizes
Sorry for the awful image, only one I can upload at the moment. I'll add some better ones when I get home Saturday so you can see the grain properly.


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[Ogri the trog]

I keep removed tool handles for just this type of job.
Hickory hammer & axe handles, and Ash garden tool handles - both do well as knife handles - not show-winners but certainly functional.

ATB

Ogr the trog

 

[BushBerks]

I still have a lot of spalted birch in my wood stacks. I've rehandled a Mora 2000 with it. If it's any use, I can send you some bits to use foc if you like, just PM the sizes
Sorry for the awful image, only one I can upload at the moment. I'll add some better ones when I get home Saturday so you can see the grain properly.
View attachment 39869

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It'll be a fair while before I'm set up to use it, but if you still have some when I've aquired the tools and space to work, that would be great! Thanks!

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[quietone]

It'll be a fair while before I'm set up to use it, but if you still have some when I've aquired the tools and space to work, that would be great! Thanks!

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Yeah, no worries. Let me know when you're up and running.

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