Commentariat member dangerousbeans did a handle using some resin-impregnated spalted maple I sent them.
Lovely work!
One of my favorite things about damascus and figured wood is that they can fool your eye into looking textured, but when you touch them they’re smooth as satin. You can get lost in a chunk of spalted maple.
Gorgeous, it looks like polished metamorphic rock.
That is a beautiful piece of wood and a beautiful piece of work. I would have a hard time putting that away in a drawer; I’d want to leave it out where I could see and enjoy it every time I was in the kitchen.
@kestrel that’s why i have a magnetic knife rack. stick them all up on the wall so i can admire my handiwork while i make tea :)
That said this one is going to a friend, so i will only see it when I visit
an interesting thing about the wood was most of the pattern was hidden until i started finishing it. you could see the black lines (the spalting), but around 600 grit the shimmer and the subtle lines start coming out. it’s amazing to see as you’re working with it, all this subtlety starts to appear.
for reference that’s 800 grit followed by 0000 steel wool, and feels dead smooth
@dangerousbeans
It’s a work of art and I bet its new owner will find a way to keep it on display. Beautiful work.
That is a gorgeous knife. I do not know how I could have missed this post for so long but I am glad I came across it today. @dangerousbeans congratulations on an excellent job.
I think the textured look of spalted maple, wavy maple and burl-wood is due to the varying orientation of the wood’s fibers. When the fibers – and therefore the pores – are at an angle towards the surface, they absorb and reflect light differently depending on the angle of the light beam and the position of the observer. That means that left-eye has ever so slightly different perception than the right one and brain interprets that as texture.
And that subsequent textured look is why these materials are so highly valued.