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Another Barehead Koa 110
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 4:14 pm
by muskrat man
People just seem to go crazy over these bare-headed 110's with koa handles. I did a little vine filework, and went further via client's requests and filed completely around the liners, looks quite nice I think. the donor was a 2 dot 110 supplied by the client. the handles are actually darker, but my light setup was a little bright for this knife.
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:19 pm
by Hukk
Great looking work there MM. I think Koa attracts a lot of people and your fine work only helps.
There are a lot of restrictions on the harvesting of Koa. It is indingenous to only 2 islands in the Hawaiian Islands. Live trees cannot be cut, only dead falls can be harvested.
They are planting Koa in other places such as Australia and New Zealand to name a couple. But the prblem is that the commercially planted Koa will not have all the curly - birdseye pattern variations because they will be new trees. They think it will be over a century + before the wood developes curly characteristics, but no one knows for sure yet. I found this out at the Oregon knife show from a guy that was selling a lot of stabilized Koa.
Anyway, great looking knife!
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:49 pm
by MITCH RAPP

Muskrat; Top Notch file work!

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:14 pm
by gmusic
Great job MM!
I have a couple of Faux Pearl handled Bulldog Copperheads that need re-handling (and maybe some filework.) Do you take on new clients?
Answered my own question, found a link to your site.
Thanks............gary
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:18 pm
by sunburst
Very Nice MM

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:17 pm
by muskrat man
Thanks guys.
Hukk, that's interesting. I knew it couldn't be harvested,but I wasn't aware they were growing it elsewhere now. I know the price is getting up there for highly figured stuff. I managed to get this set at a reasonable price, kind of bought it blind, turned out to have nicer figure than I expected.
Gary, Got your email and responded.
Thank you all for your kind words.

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 8:10 pm
by Classic Case
very nice work

Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:16 pm
by orvet
Excellent work as always!
Dale
Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 10:19 pm
by Hukk
muskrat man wrote:Thanks guys.
Hukk, that's interesting. I knew it couldn't be harvested,but I wasn't aware they were growing it elsewhere now. I know the price is getting up there for highly figured stuff. I managed to get this set at a reasonable price, kind of bought it blind, turned out to have nicer figure than I expected.
I thought so also, but it stands to reason because it is so desirable. They do use it for furniture (oh man, how many knives would that make) as well as many other items. It does grow extremely fast, up to 1 foot in diameter in a year in Hawaii

But how many years (or centuries) does it take for the wood to be well figured. I don't know what the deal is, plant it now and have your great, great, great, great gandchildren harvest it.

OR, is it a sustainable harvest where they just cut branches because it grows so fast, but will that have the desired figure that is fine enough for knives. Still a lot of unanswered questions.