Buckeye Burl Handle With Turquoise Inlay

[Idahomike251]

I love the spectacular grain structure of the stabilized buckeye burl, however, they sometimes are loaded with hidden gaps and voids which show up at the most unfortunate of times - like when the handles are bonded to the blade and I am starting on the final shaping of the handle. I have solved this issue (for me anyway) by placing turquoise inlay into the gaps and voids to kind of add even more interest to the burl grain structure. Blade: Mirror polished D2 with Rockwell hardness of 60.5C
 
 
 
 

[Bill Kissner]

That is beautiful Mike. I have a friend in Colorado that does wood turning and he has been doing that for years. He looks for wood with natural openings or cracks so he can fill the voids wit turquoise, malachite, or other gemstones. His pieces sell for thousands of dollars.

[Idahomike251]

Bill, I got the idea from my buckeye custom made trout landing net from Bitterroot Net Company up in Spokane, Washington. They use this technique on their wood nets, and I was excited to try it on my knife handle.

[Hot Hap]

That is flat out terrific!

[Bodork]

That is sweet! A guy in Amarillo turns items from mesquite Burl and fills the voids with turquoise. Neat stuff! Looks great in your knife!

[amar911]

I love the knife, Mike. Very beautiful without looking garish like some turquoise accented knives do. Of course, I always seem to love your knives.

Allan

[Kevin Evans]

Neat.  

[wissler]

Looks very cool.

[srtben]

That looks great Mike!
Are using CA glue to harden the inlay?

[Idahomike251]

Hello Ben,

Yes, I found CA to be a great binder for the turquoise grains.
A fellow Tradganger e-mailed me for more information, and here is a copy of my response:

You can get the "ground turquoise" by searching amazon.com. I purchased one of fine ground turquoise "powder", and another pack of turquoise "grains". It's up to each knife maker's choice, but I prefer to use this stuff on stabilized resin impregnated woods. First, I clean out the gaps to be filled,and then I coat the inside of the gap(s) with water thin cyanoacrylate adhesive. Next, mix small amount of turquoise (powder and grains) with extra thick gap filling cyanoacrylate to make about 1/4 teaspoon total of the paste (with consistency of strawberry jam) to apply into the wood gap, you must be ready to work fast, as the paste will start to harden in less than three to four minutes. If the gap is rather large, just mix another batch and keep filling. I then sand and plastic polish the handle like I would any other stabilized wood knife handle.

Mike O.