Olive Wood

[Tom Militano]

Can olive wood be stabilized or is it to oily? It seems pretty dense to me. Somebody gave me a piece and I've never used any of it before. Thanks.

[txwoodchip]

In my limited experience, I've had more problems getting olive wood stabilized than any other wood. I think the trick is to make sure your using wood that is very well cured to begin with and then have it stabilized.

[Osprey Guy]

I wasn't aware that Olive wood needed to be stabilized...It is every bit as "usable" right off the shelf as ironwood or snakewood (as examples). Just make sure it's air dried for a good while (you do not kiln dry olive wood). Other than that it is a very dense wood much like the aforementioned examples and does not require to be stabilized.

Dennis Greenbaum

Yeah Baby!

PS. Just to confirm what I thought to be the case, I checked this out with the local exotic wood expert (he owns Exotic Lumber, a great retail store within 12 minutes of my house). Josh did indeed confirm what I stated above.

[Tom Militano]

Thanks for the information.

[Robert Sox]

I did a knife with olive wood last year. I sent the wood to K&G for stabilizing. The wood looked good and finished up into a great knife. It did smell live olive oil cooking when I worked the handle on the grinder, but that's not all bad.