I made this knife with walnut scales and black liners. I'm having an issue with the liners swelling slightly and standing just proud of the blade. It doesn't seem that the walnut is doing the same - it's strange that the liners only would swell. I used linseed oil on the handle but I didn't think it would have an effect on the liner. The liners are standard G10 material. Has anyone else had this problem?
Was the walnut dry? Really dry? If not, it could have shrunk making it seem like the G10 is swelling. Also, that is very nice. Classy looking is probably the best description.
I'm thinking along the same lines as ahlsy... I'd guess the Walnut is contracting. Is the G10 sitting proud of the tang as well as the Walnut? The Walnut looks good against the black!
The walnut was purchased at a local hardwood supplier so I expect it would be kiln dried but I'm not sure of the percentages or anything. It would make sense that the wood would shrink somewhat but it doesn't seem to be the case. The G10 sits proud of the tang and the Walnut ... kinda like it soaked something up and swelled which makes no sense. Thank you for your nice comments. Much appreciated. See my response to ahlsy above ... thank you for your input and the nice compliment. ) I am wondering if the material is really not G10 and I only thought it was. It seemed to be almost a canvas type material but was sold to me as G10. Maybe I have the wrong product somehow? If the hardwood I'm using for scales gets to be a problem I think maybe it would be a good idea to find a supplier for stabilized wood or start making my own.
If that is the spacer that is sold at knife making supply places it's probably vulcanized fibre spacer. I have never noticed it shrinking before, however wood can certainly be dimensionally unstable. I have experienced this will stabilized wood as well. I had some stabilized maple shrink on me and there was a noticeable ridge where it met the fibre spacer. I find it's more noticeable along the grain where the tang and or spacer meet the scale. Some makers move away from wooden scales on full tang knives for this very reason, or they go with synthetic materials. It's amazing how sensitive the human finger is. I read in a science journal that a human finger can detect things down to nanometres. Not sure how to work around that degree of sensitivity. BTW, nice combination of materials. Black, silver and walnut always go great together. Dan
I think about moving from wood to synthetic but it's a pricey move. And I really like the feel and look of real wood. Thanks very much for the compliment! It takes me quite a while to choose a combination of materials that I like. Thanks for your input.
I prefer to use wood too, but have been making more hidden or through tang which don't seem to have this specific problem as much as full tang knives do. Hidden tangs also allow you to showcase a nice block of wood.
I have resorted to a small sanding block along the liner, seems to help with the wood sanding faster than the G10 and making a hump
A few years ago Roman said something like (and I paraphrase) "When sanding, work on the harder materials and the softer materials will take care of themselves." This sort of floats around in my head when finishing where two materials meet that are of different hardnesses like bolster and scale or pin and scale or liner and scale.
That is a good may of putting it Dancom, I know I will focus on the stainless pins to be sure they are at handle level and never thought of describing it the way you did
I can speak from experience and would put money on it being the wood shrinking. I've done about 4 knives now using some old, unstabilized walnut ends that i've been keeping forever (i'm a wood packrat). I figured that they were done shrining for sure but once you cut into them and sand off the outside layers, sure enough, it shrinks again. I had one knife where the handle shrunk so much, i had a small ridge where the tang popped up. The edge of the tang was almost sharp against the palm.
