All About Pocket Knives

Guys,

What is Apple wood like for making Scales ??

My Family home where I grew up has a small Orchard of mostly Apple trees, I spent so much of my childhood down there making tree houses in the bigger Cooking Apple trees, and we used to call it the Jungle as my parents never really took care of it, which was fine by me as it was my Jungle !!!

My parents have now parted ways after 50 years, which is sad for many reasons, and for the past two years I have been going back to harvest the apples as nothing tastes like the Apples you grew up with, as I knew the time would come when we no longer own these trees. I do fear that a new owner would chop down the enitre lot !!!
I suspect that the Home will be sold in the next couple of years and a big piece of my childhood will be gone, so I am wondering if the large dry dead branches would be suitable to make some memories with ??

The trees are Cox's Orange Pippens, Bramleys, and a bunch of ready to eat varieties which are all small trees despite being 50 + years they are only about 15FT high but could definately get timber from.

Oh we also have lots of Plum Trees down there.

Let me know what you think

Cheers

JT

I have no idea if they would make for a good scale material or not.
I hope so, so you will have that reminder of by-gone days always in your pocket.

Even so, gather what you can. Apple wood is great for smoking meats!

HI JT,

You have nothing to lose by getting some of the wood and taking the chance. If you have a bandsaw or access to one you can saw up some blocks or scales. I have more than once played around with wood from the firewood pile. I also have used plum to make some spoons and it seems pretty hard to me. Cant speak for apple directly but I suspect it would work. If nothing else you have a nice memory on a knife that is a keepsake. If there is fresh cut off that you can save for a while and dry they may work out better then say old dead branches. Good luck with it

Ross

Had a friend do several in Japanese Apple wood. They looked fine. No idea how they held up over time?

I have used apple to turn pens and small bowls on the mini lathe. Seems to be tight grained and hard, but has to be completely dry. I got the wood from a guy I used to work with, so no idea what species of apple it was.

Apple is a fairly hard wood, harder than oak. The only problem is that it has a high shrinkage rate so it will shrink and expand significantly through the seasons. You definitely want to have it dry for at least a year if not more, and even better to have it stabilized. It looks similar to cherry when finished. If you can find some spalted pieces that'd be outstanding as it can look quite spectacular, but in that case you definitely want it super dry and stabilized. Spalted wood is usually quite soft.

Eric

Agree Eric, I would have it stabilized or you can diy. I’m sure the process is on the internet.
Jimbo

The pens and small bowl I mentioned turning from apple. I have some more pen blanks that as you can see are dried to about 5.4% on the moisture tester. I dont think there is a need to stabilize it unless you have spalting that is kind of punky. Our local apple in this part of the world has some color streaks against a different color background. When you are using wood that is of questionable moisture content, it is essential to have a tester.

Good luck with your project! I can't speak to a prognosis for knife handles, but I made a walking stick from a crabapple limb and it is excellent and quite pretty. And, yes, great smoking wood.