The following woods are the natural grown Florida woods that I have used to make the handles for my "Florida Series" custom knives. I stabilize https://turntex.com/help-center/cactus-juice-stabilizing-resources/60-using-cactus-juice all of the woods in my shop. I will provide the names of each of them as I go along. None of the woods that I use on my Florida Series knives is commercially raised, it is all from trees that have been removed or trimmed. I have also received logs, branches, stumps, or in a few cases chunks of wood that was cut by customers. I generally start this process with a chain saw and bug spray (My wife said I had to add that part). I try to locate the best looking wood to use for my knife handles and by golly, sometimes I succeed. All of the photos will be from knives that I have produced.
Pictured above is a piece of stabilized Pignut Hickory https://greytowers.org/trees/pignut-hickory/ . A friend of mine had to remove one of his trees and he brought me several nice sized chunks of this interesting Florida tree. This particular piece has a chatoyance that is very visible https://www.chatometry.com/what-is-wood-chatoyance/ It makes this piece very unique as well as beautiful. Not all of the Pignut Hickory that I have used have this chatoyance but I was lucky enough to have at least a few.
The piece of wood pictured above is stabilized Spalted Pecan The spalting is due the the tree having a fungus or bacteria that creates this beautiful effect https://www.vermontwildwoods.com/spalted-wood . I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a few logs that had a considerable amount of spalted sap wood. This wood has made some very stunning knife handles.
The wood that is pictured above is stabilized Wild Black Cherry https://www.fnps.org/plant/prunus-serotina . I was told by an old Florida native that Wild Black Cherry used to be much more abundant than it is today because the orange growers used the wood to make shipping crates, I cannot find any verification for this, but I'll keep trying... Personally I think the wood is just gorgeous and it makes phenomenal knife handle material. I had a few dead trees on my property and I acquired a few logs from the above mentioned Florida native.
The wood show above is stabilized Black Olivewood from South Florida. I rescued it form the side of the road before it could be taken to the land fill. The wood from the Black Olivewood tree is simply gorgeous https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/ST102 . I only have a limited supply of this wood, but I just have to put one out every so often. These trees offer substantial shade throughout South Florida but they can be a messy tree as well as the fruit from this tree (that is not edible has been known to break out more than a few car windows.
This is the first of several posts that I will be doing related to the woods I use for my "Florida Series" custom knives.
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