Fontenille #134 in Black Palm

I was asked to dress this Fontenille in Black palm, the blade did not need work.
IMHO black palm has interesting appearance and definitely stands out among more common woods. The PITA, for me, working with that wood is the grain structure, it has long dense grains (black) imbedded with not as dense lighter grains which leads to easy splitting. The wood I have is not stabilized so may be stabilised Black palm is easier to work with I do not know.

Anyway, I used SS washers and nickel-silver pins, wipe on poly for finish.

http://i54.tinypic.com/suuceg.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/15n55js.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/2rp9r8y.jpg

Very nice looking razor. Well done.

I like the black palm. Good job!

Grain shows nicely. Great job !!

Nice Stefan, I like the grain pattern. I've never seen Black Palm before, it almost looks like a mix between Teak and Ebony. hmmmm
MIke

As usual, Stefan, very nice work. The owner will, no doubt, be proud to use that gorgeous razor!

LOL Sounds familiar :D

I have done a very few in Black Palm Stefan and agree completely "beautiful wood" PITA to work...

Stabilized would be easier, but also right after cutting the shape if you put on a good wash coat of your finish, or a first coat of thin CA, if yer going that direction, it helps a ton with the sanding and shaping...


Good Job though :tu

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

LOL Sounds familiar :D

I have done a very few in Black Palm Stefan and agree completely "beautiful wood" PITA to work...

Stabilized would be easier, but also right after cutting the shape if you put on a good wash coat of your finish, or a first coat of thin CA, if yer going that direction, it helps a ton with the sanding and shaping...


Good Job though :tu

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Glen what I did was I soaked the wood before cutting in Danish oil for ~2 weeks then nice 3-4 day dry and I got better results cutting and sanding, but still got some splinting though .
those scales were the second attempt.

Nice work Stefan!

Stefan,
That is seriously a beautiful set of scales:bow...I really like the pattern and colors

Great job! I've had very little luck with black palm... just can't seen to get it looking good. I've been using a palm with tighter grain than yours. And I don't think I've been finishing it correctly. Maybe next time I'll try CA. I would just love to get scales to loom as good as yours here.

Beautiful job on that razor.
I agree that palm is difficult, but I disagree that it is a wood. The problem is that palm is a grass. As such grasses require some different techniques. Glen has a good idea with the thin CA. I have used this many times while turning grasses. I also use it for punky woods or anything I fear will fall apart.

Part of our problems with grasses is that we don't know much of the techniques used in woring them; where in other countries the tools look different because they know more about grasses.

sorry for the vagueness, but I don't know much about it either

-G

Nice job Stefan. Looks worth the trouble :D

Very nice looking handles and razor. Congratulations.

Never seen before this beautiful wood. I'd like to hold it in my hands. Maybe I get the chance in November (vacation in FL).
Congrats-well done!

Gold medal scales for a gold medal blade.

Nice job :tu