all right guys, went to the local wood place. guy is real nice. has tons of stuff. I got there 4 minutes before closing and he stayed another hour for me. going to cut the wood up for me tomorrow morning and I can pick it up and post pics.

I bought Lignum Vitae, Cocobolo and Padauk. He had a buttload of the lignum vitae and I liked the green color, he said that when you cut it and work it it'll be brown, but it'll oxidize green again. said that it didn't need any finish applied and was waterproof. I picked a piece with good grain structure, I think it will look good.

the cocobolo and padauk are self-explanatory I guess. he had ebony, rosewood, the lignum vitae and cocobolo as well as snakewood in small pieces. the padauk he had in boards (as well as wenge, bocote, holly, lacewood, purpleheart, zebrawood etc.) I have a blade I got back with padauk scales I think look great so decided on that. he cut 2' of board off for me and is going to cut it for me into 1/8" as long as the other pieces.

I think prices weren't that bad, the cutting it is the bad part. he has a 20 dollar minimum which he said is plenty of time. (I guess buying more wood would lessen the overall. cost). figure about 10 bucks a piece.

padauk 2' x 5" will probably net three boards that size by 1/8"
lignum vitae about 2" x 12" and thick enough to give me maybe five of those at 1/8"
cocobolo about 1.5" x 12" maybe I'll get three or four at 1/8"?

I'll pick it up tomorrow and post pics.

I'm most curious about the lignum vitae, for some reason I can't find any razors here with scales from that. anybody got pics or other info for me?

Thanks all.

Red
PS
If after seeing it anybody wants some of this lignum vitae let me know, he's got a lot of it in all knids of sizes. I don't know much about it so got a smaller piece but he had some 3" x 12" and bigger.