japanese inspired chef knife

[cbr900son]

My favorite woods are Maple (burl or curly like above), redwood burl, Koa preferably stabalized with lots of figure,and Ironwood. There are a lot more and stains and dyes etc can always change a knife completely.

 

[ulshop]

Stabilized koa? Kiln dried? Just curious...

 

[cbr900son]

Stabilized koa? Kiln dried? Just curious...

Stabalized is where they put the wood in a bag of some sort with some speciasl resin then hook that up to high vacuum. After several days its basically impregnated with the resin which bring out the woods figure plus the resins make it almost 100% waterproof and chemical proof.

This is stabalized koa

 

[ulshop]

I've seen turners do something similar to cure green wood. I worked for a hardwood dealer back in grad school, we had trouble with certain types splitting when worked. Snakewood, thuya burl, cocobolo, ebony... the new england weather/seasons played havoc with them. I still have some big pieces of koa left over from a dining table I built years ago... beautiful stuff.

 

[cbr900son]

I've seen turners do something similar to cure green wood. I worked for a hardwood dealer back in grad school, we had trouble with certain types splitting when worked. Snakewood, thuya burl, cocobolo, ebony... the new england weather/seasons played havoc with them. I still have some big pieces of koa left over from a dining table I built years ago... beautiful stuff.

Yeah it make it alot easier to work out. less cracking, chip out when drilling etc. The dust is alot nastier tho. Need a respirator