Finishing desert ironwood?

[JNovak]

I swear this will be my last question for awhile...I hope. I'll be fitting my blade with desert ironwood scales and was wondering how everyone out there has been finishing them. I've seen many knives featured on this site with desert ironwood scales and I've just fallen in love with that material. It's such a rich and elegent look. What is your secret to making that wood really stand out? Do you work your way thru the different grits and finish with a wax or buffing compound? Do you fill or seal it before you start your finish work? By the way, this knife will be put to use as I don't plan on building anything I can't use. Not yet anyway. I hope the ironwood will be durable. Thanks!

John

[Jamey Saunders]

Ironwood is very aptly named, 'cause the stuff's hard as a piece of...well, iron. You don't need to seal it, you don't need to stabilize it, you don't need to wax it. You just have to sand it carefully up through the grits until you have a satisfactory finish. I have hit it with some white rouge on the buffer and gotten a pretty high luster.

The stuff's a pain to work, since it is so hard, and it loads up a belt like crazy, but it is very beautiful.

To clean up a loaded belt, use the rubber sole of an old sneaker. Grind on the rubber for a few seconds, and the belt will come pretty clean. And that's cheaper than buying one of those belt cleaner sticks.

[Bob Warner]

.

[cactusforge]

Also don't breath the dust, you will know not to do thea the first time you do, one lesson is enough.
It don't seem to make any difference which way the grain goes as it is very short and it is real tuff stuff. Gib

[caveman]

hand sand to 600, buff with white compound......

[Osprey Guy]

John-

There's no one right answer for pretty much any question posed in these forums...as evidenced here.

I love Desert Ironwood, absolutely one of my favorites. I've had especially good success taking it all the way up through the grits...at least to 2000 but often to 7000grit. Then a light buff with wax and I wind up with a gorgeous, glass-like finish.

Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby!

A couple of samples...I wish the pics showed how great the finish turned out in each case. You almost can't screw up with Ironwood...

[Osprey Guy]

By the way...

As Bob points out you should try and pick the best forum and then post your question...in time you'll get a better feel for what sort of question to post where...(I still don't always guess right with certain types of questions).

If however you don't feel you're getting an adequate response I wouldn't feel shy about posting your question again in a different forum. While most of the "regulars" do cruise through the various forums, they might miss your question or not have a sufficient answer.

There are also many members who respond with much less frequency and tend to visit only a few forums on a regular basis. I recently couldn't get a response I was looking for out of Fine Embellishments...so I posted in another forum, and then another, and eventually got a couple of good answers to my question.

The last thing we would want is to intimidate you and have you hesitate in posting your questions...

Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby!

[JNovak]

Thanks to everyone who answered my question. By the way, what exactly is this white rouge everyone speaks of? Where can I find it?

John

[Jamey Saunders]

White Rouge is buffing compound. I always used it for the final mirror finish on hardened Stainless, but I also used it for the finish on hard materials like Ironwood.

You can find it at any of the Knifemaking supply houses or maybe at Home Depot or Lowes. I got mine in a buffing compound set (white rouge, red rouge, tripoli compound and emory compound) at Sears.

You can see the Suppliers List here. Any of the Supply houses would have buffing compound.

http://www.internetbusinesslinks.net/SupplierList.html