This one came out pretty good. Working with this extinct pine is brutal. It takes TWO sander belts to shape the handle down. The resin is very thick in the woodgrain and has dried in the West Texas desert sun for over a hundred years.
It's also nerve wracking to carve into. This may very well be the last board of this species of pine on the planet and my meager hands are going to work with it? That's like handing the Hope diamond to a novice diamond-cutter. Still, in this knife I am well-pleased. It turned out pretty close to what I wanted in my mind.
2 comments:
NICE! I love the obvious grain.
The dark lines in the grain are pine resin! Really thick but if you hold the wood up to the light you can almost see through it as if it were amber! So totally cool.
It really gums up the works though. When I put the handle to the belt sander the resin gets everywhere. Gums up the works so I have to clean it out and then it's so hard it eats up belts. I normally get 3 knives to each belt but this wood takes 2 belts per handle. Thus the increased cost. Time and materials!
I'm looking for a really good project to do with it but haven't thought of anything yet beyond just a basic knife or two.
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