The Florida wood for this post is Florida Southern Red Oak (https://hort.ifas.ufl.edu/woody/Pages/quefal/quefal.shtml#:~:text=Trees%20occur%20naturally%20throughout%20north,poor%2Dquality%2C%20sandy%20ridges.). Red Oak can be some of the most beautiful wood that I use or it can be just regular Oak. When I look for the pieces of Southern Red Oak that I will use, I try to find areas of the branch/tree that have had some kind of stress. Areas that have had damage from insects is my first target. There is not as much usable wood around the area of damage but colors and figuring is what I look for. The knife handle pictured above came from a branch that was more than 20 inches in diameter and more than 30 feet long. The part of the branch I chose to use was maybe 2 feet long and the inside was hollowed out by insects. This portion of the branch had very distinctive figuring and colors, I just had to avoid the holes. The remaining wood looked just like the Oak that you can buy at your local lumber yard. (Sometimes I have to do a lot of cutting for very little wood that I'll use). This is another wood that lends itself to be paired with other woods.
On this knife handle I used the Southern Red Oak for the smaller bolster area of the handle. with coloring and figuring like that, I had to use every piece that I could. This handle was pared with Florida Wild Plum (another Florida wood that I'll post about later). I think using the Red, White, and Blue G10 Spacers adds a very distinctive separation of the two woods.
The knife handle pictured above is Florida Southern Red Oak pared with Florida Spalted Pecan and the Red, White, and Blue G10 Spacers. Putting combinations like this on the variety of knife styles that I make every knife a unique one of a kind knife.
This handle is made with Florida Southern Southern Red Oak and a Florida Wild Black Cherry Bolster with Red White & Blue G10 Spacers.
This last photo is the most recent blade I have made using Florida Southern Red Oak. This handle was also pared with Florida Wild Black Cherry and the Red, White & Blue G10 Spacers. Between the variations of blade styles, blade finishes, mechanical connectors (pins) the combinations are so plentiful that I will run out of Southern Red Oak long before I run out of potential combinations.
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