Knife Handle 911

[jwfilion]

I have just finished shaping the handle on a new fillet knife. The material is stabilized Tasmanian Myrtlewood Burl .A beautiful wood with magnificent grain. However, I noticed what appeared to be cracks on the edge on the handle. Upon closer examination, they seem to be part of the swirling grain structure. Other lines of the same color and thickness don't go to the edge. These light colored lines seem to be a softer wood than the rest. When dragging my thumbnail across it, I can feel a definite break in the surface. I thought the stabilizing process filled these grains so that the surface would be unbroken. Is it possible to fix this? Would super glue fill these tiny imperfections, or maybe clear epoxy? I would hate to destroy the beauty of the grain doing this(kind of defeats the purpose). Would such a process affect the buffing quality? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

[R.W.Clark]

Super Glue.

[Ray Rogers]

Some stabilizing does fill those small voids but not all stabilizing processes are equal. Also, some chemistry may work better on some woods than on others.

The most successful stabilizing I have used has beed from K&G Finishing. They use what seems to be a very tough acrylic of some sort which does fill the fine gaps in delicate burl wood and is able to bring those woods up to a reasonable level of durability and solidiity. I have seen where even that goo won't fill some larger gaps but it works great on the smaller ones. In a few rare cases, some natural oils in a piece of exotic wood may keep the goo from hardening like it should and therefore it would not fill a fine gap but I've only seen that happen once or twice over many years of using their process.....

[Jason Cutter]

I personally choose to use natural or stabilised woods because there are those tiny irregularities and imperfections (if you want to call it that) that give the material character. As Ray said, no stabilisation of filling process will completely eliminate that. I think the important thing is to ensure that you don't have an entire chunk that is falling out. The fast, thin type superglues will wick into any gaps, even ones you can't see. Gel types will partially fill and "varnish" a larger gap. But I say NOT to completely fill the gap. That way the handle won't look like a piece of wood-printed plastic.

The only problem with gaps is that when you go to buff, they can fill up with buffing gunk. The solution ? Hand sand to a very high grit - at leat 1500 or 2000grit, then use a clean dedicated buff with only white rouge compound. Wipe vigorously with a soft cloth with cooking oil- it slowly dissolves the waxy buffing gunk without damaging the stabilising agent in the wood. Jason.