NO MORE ************** Redwood!

Sorry folks but I've worked with the last block of red dust (redwood) today. Once again I've been shown that this stuff is sub-standard for use when attempting to make money. I'm many hours into a rehandle that just went south because the wood is not really wood, it's formed dust. Now I've got to grind the redwood off, reimburse the customer for the loss, buy another mosaic pin, lose my hours into it already, possibly risk hosing the knife (which I've already thinned!), and now re-work a whole new block of wood (again). Ugh!!!

I might take buckeye burl off the list too. There's just too much risk for me to keep playing around with this garbage.

Rant mode OFF

Dave



PS - I don't blame anyone but myself here, I know better.

 

When it comes to those woods(buckeye or redwood) and western handles they have been off my list since last summer, think stainless pins went out through the door around that time aswell.
For WA I find redwood pretty neat to work with though.

 

I dropped stainless pins a long time ago too.

I guess that I'd consider redwood for wa handles but no more on westerns.

 

Ick. Sorry to hear it Dave! Thankfully my block of redwood that I'm going to send to you eventually (hopefully haha) is for a wa handle.

 

Lol, that took awhile. Beautiful wood, but a pita to work with.

 

It is great looking stuff and I've had some redwood that worked nice but mostly it's a pain in the ass and I've just had too many losses to justify the risk. I do think that making an octagonal wa handle would fit this stuff better.

 

Would that apply to stabilized Redwood also Dave?

 

Stabilized is no better, I "pulled apart" 2 wa handles, rubbing in an oil/wax top coat. Its too brittle.

 

odd all the redwood originals ive seen were tough lol (SOA reference)

sorry about the frustrations Dave sounds like a crappy day

 

I can come up with something besides buckeye for mine. I was surprised you had picked some.

 

I'll be giving yours a go John. I've been lucky in the past with some of it, just also very unlucky too. Buckeye is better than redwood.

 

I've had terrible luck with about 90% of the stabilized redwood I've used. What has always kept me trying is the great colors and patterns plus when a block works it's so damn nice looking that I forget about the bad.

 

Ok. I was looking for backups just in case.

 

Just out of curiosity, what's the deal with stainless pins?

 

Metal & wood wear at different rates, the greater the difference the harder it is to make them fit flush. Stainless wears slow and is much harder than wood so when using stainless pins they want to sit proud of the wood.

 

SS pins are no problem if you use a hard backer (break the edges or you can gouge the wood )
hard backer keeps the paper at the same level as the hardest part of the handle.