Thread: Scales material - best wood?

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

So far I've enjoyed working with rosewood, bocote, cocobolo and ebony-I love the tropical, oily hardwoods for workability and the ease with which they polish up. I'd love to try some lignum, and horn is awesome in the non-wood category obviously.

do you need to stanilize any of those for razor scales? i've heard of some people that sday you need to stabilize those an the snakewood...
thanks!
Gabe

Originally Posted by gabrielcr78

do you need to stanilize any of those for razor scales? i've heard of some people that sday you need to stabilize those an the snakewood...
thanks!
Gabe

I haven't worked with lignum, but either the horn nor the tropical hardwoods require stabilization. The hardwoods polish up beautifully and are generally pretty stable even without a finish, though a well-done CA, epoxy, or some sort of rubbed oil finish would certainly seal the deal.

Stabilizing soft, punky and/or spalted burls in a vacuum chamber with "Cactus Juice" or similar and then curing them is a necessity, and can produce stunning results. But unless you're going to get into it on a volume basis (or have a knife-maker friend who will trade nice blanks for fancy cut-off pieces from a custom art furniture maker!), it might be easier just to buy the stabilized blanks.