Latest knife with Osage Orange Handles

opaul

opaul

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This is my latest knife project. 8.5" OAL with a 4.25" blade. The handles are Osage Orange with brass pins and lanyard tube. The metal is from an old plow shear, heat treated, normalized, quenched and tempered. It takes a razor edge. Thanks!
 

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Osage Orange wood comes from the Bois-de-Arc tree, also known as a Bodark tree.
The male tree produces nice small white flowers which pollinate the female tree, which produces it's fruit which is large green sticky"horse apples".
My tree is the male and is over 300 years old.
 
mrchuck said:
Osage Orange wood comes from the Bois-de-Arc tree, also known as a Bodark tree.
The male tree produces nice small white flowers which pollinate the female tree, which produces it's fruit which is large green sticky"horse apples".
My tree is the male and is over 300 years old.
Click to expand...

Up in Kansas, where there are millions, maybe billions of them, these are called Hedge trees, and the fruit called Hedge Apples. Squirrels like hedge apples, deer do too, and they are a good spider repellent.
 
Very nice. My first thought was "Kephart", which it sort of resembles, except for the blade and the handle, which recalls the Condor Bushlore.

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mrchuck said:
Osage Orange wood comes from the Bois-de-Arc tree, also known as a Bodark tree.
The male tree produces nice small white flowers which pollinate the female tree, which produces it's fruit which is large green sticky"horse apples".
My tree is the male and is over 300 years old.
Click to expand...

Did you plant it???

Sorry! Someone had to say it!
 
Thanks for all the kind words. I do a rough draft on the steel and then grind by how I think it should look. Probably not the best way to go about it but I enjoy doing it that way.
I really liked working with the Osage Orange. I waxed the handles and sanded with 1500 grit between applications. It gives it a nice finish, pleasant to the touch.
 
opaul said:
This is my latest knife project. 8.5" OAL with a 4.25" blade. The handles are Osage Orange with brass pins and lanyard tube. The metal is from an old plow shear, heat treated, normalized, quenched and tempered. It takes a razor edge. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Nice shaped blade and handle. It will do about anything a knife should do. Larry
 
I guess different places use different names. We call the fruit hedge apples. Road apples are a different substance, but left by horses. I've heard that the messicans stuff auto seats with it when they upholster them. Gives them a unique odor.
As I understand it, its also called iron wood for its toughness. Was used in the past as flooring in barges, like coal barges. It does dull a chainsaw blade pretty quick. Carbide tip chains don't really eat through anything, but nothing stops them either. The last one I tore into was in the last century. That chain didn't get dull, but it didn't get sharper either.

Not sure how you'd go about aging the wood other than lay it up and wait. I like the guy who asked if you planted that tree. Its the kind of question they ask me.
 
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