I use quite a bit of ivory, and it is also a love/relationship. It seems that controlling hydration is the key issue with any of these natural materials. It is important for both the maker and collector to be aware of potential environmental changes from place to place. Ivory is a tooth. It's natural environment is a mouth. If we are to use it, it needs to be dried extremely slowly to ambient conditions. A heavy coat of wax seems to be the best way to control the rate of moisture transfer in and out of the piece. The owner should also avoid subjecting the piece to extreme changes. For example, it is not a good idea to leave an ivory, or stag handled knife in a window where the sun could heat it rapidly.

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I use quite a bit of ivory, and it is also a love/relationship. It seems that controlling hydration is the key issue with any of these natural materials. It is important for both the maker and collector to be aware of potential environmental changes from place to place. Ivory is a tooth. It's natural environment is a mouth. If we are to use it, it needs to be dried extremely slowly to ambient conditions. A heavy coat of wax seems to be the best way to control the rate of moisture transfer in and out of the piece. The owner should also avoid subjecting the piece to extreme changes. For example, it is not a good idea to leave an ivory, or stag handled knife in a window where the sun could heat it rapidly.

I learned a lesson on this the hard way. I let a high-end gun shop talk me into placing a knife on consignment there. The owner unknowingly displayed it under a heat vent in the ceiling. You can imagine what happened to the ivory handle.

This brings to mind a thought as to whether or not it is a good idea to have ivory stabilized. So far I haven't done this but have thought about trying it. I have hesitated in that I haven't wanted a good piece of expensive ivory to be warped or somehow damaged by the stabilizing process. Has anyone had any experience with this and if so to what outcome?

Gary

About the only way I'll use stag is if:

#1.) I can find one I like, and

#2.) It will have to be used in a take-down assembly.

Stag is GOING TO MOVE! and I want to be able to loosen the assembly so it can move freely during environmental changes and then be tightened when put into use.

No matter the natural material, whether it be ivory, stag, bone, pearl, etc. no power equipment is ever used for shaping.

Ever.

All stock removal and shaping is only done with hand tools so as to never generate excessive heat.

What would happen with any of your body parts if they were over-heated?

Right. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//cool.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='B)' />

Moose antler has become one of my absolute Favorite handle materials, it is relatively stable carves and works nicely stains well polishes well it can be scrimed. and no issues with legalities.

MP

A skill that a new knife maker needs to develop early on is to be able to "read" the material. I have a lot of handle material scales that I may never use because I bought before I really could read whether it would work or not.

Like stag, sheep horn has the natural texture that , when ground and finished to the right depth, really looks great. In some cases very little outside finishing is required and in others you may have to really get creative to use it at all. It can do crazy things while sitting on the shelf or in the vendor's storage.

I try to pick the sheep horn scales with a particular style knife in mind. This is usually a hunting knife since scales large enough for Bowies/Camp Knives are pretty scarce but I will occasionally find them.

I will always have a target thickness in mind when I am preparing the scales (anything with texture) for mounting onto the blade. For example, if I know the handle will be 1/2 or 9/16 inch thick right where it butts up to the back of the guard, I will want each scale to be slightly more than 1/2 of that target thickness, in this case 9/16- 5/8 inch allowing 1/32 on each side. Slightly more because there should be some tiny bit (1/32)extra to remove in order to finish flush with the guard. I am hesitant to give actual numbers of this tiny bit of extra material, but I want you to have some idea of the tolerances that need to be used. When using stag or sheep horn you are really having to take each scale and size it up individually. To further complicate things, one of the scales might appear to have a deep fissure where it butts the guard. I don't like that so I will choose scales from the time of purchase with enough length to slide forward till a peak will allow extra material to protrude for removal. I may have to just slide one scale forward and trim the rear later. This will explain why the makers will spend quite some time at the vendors table talking it over with himself, deciding if it will work for any of his knives.

This will also explain why after all of the work choosing these natural materials that a maker will sometimes be rather protective of his stash. <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//smile.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Lin is very correct about learning how to "read" the handle material to determine its usefulness. Lin isn't the only knifemaker with a bunch of material that may never be used. I have a lot of stag and even some ivory slabs that I don’t how I will use. I have a gorgeous set of green mammoth slabs that I bought years ago. They are large and very thick. Perfect I thought, for a large bowie handle. I paid a fortune for them. However, one slab has a convex curve along its length. The other slab is concave. Could only use them to make a handle that is curved. I will probably wind up sawing them into small pieces and grinding away all the thickness to make some small pocket knife slabs.

The point of all this, is that you need to learn how to pick out these types of handle material. Hopefully, this thread will help. But, also consider asking a skilled knifemaker to teach you what to look for. Go to a vendor's booth and get a lesson on how to choose material that can be used to make a nice handle. You can waste a lot of money and time, if you choose bad handle material. I advise new knifemakers to not get into too big of a hurry to start using ivory, antler and horn handle materials. Learn how to shape knife handles from wood first. Once you have some skill with wood, you will have a better knowledge of what will need to be done to animal products to get them to fit a knife.

Some of the vendors are very good at matching handle slabs. Some are terrible at it. None do it well all of the time. The first thing that I look for is the outer contour of the handle slabs, along their length. Do they match? Depending on what section of the tusk, antler or horn that the slab is cut from, it will be concave, straight, or convex. They need to be the same.

The next thing to check, is to make sure that the slabs are thick enough. I prefer to have the slabs be plenty thick. I like to have enough material to make any adjustments necessary to get them to fit the knife correctly. The flattened back of the slabs should also be fairly parallel with the outer surface of the slab. I have useless slabs, that taper off too thin on one end, the top, the bottom, or a corner. There is not enough material left on the back of the slab to make adjustments. Make sure that you have enough thickness to work with. The point of using these materials is to preserve the texture and color, placing those features on the surface of the knife handle. As Lin mentioned, you will be grinding the back of these slabs to get them to proper thickness for use.

I store all of my natural handle material in an almost airtight cabinet. I have heard of guys using old refrigerators for this purpose. I try to maintain the humidity in the cabinet at 45 percent. I figure that if I stabilize the moisture in the handle material at 45 percent humidity, it will only move a minimum amount when subjected to 10 percent or 90 percent humidity environments. Seems to work. When prepping handle material for installation, I will cut and shape it very close to final dimensions, then put it back in the cabinet for at least a few days. The idea is to reset the moisture content, just before installing on the knife. The knives that I have in my possession for a length of time, seem to have less problems with the material changing dimensions. Haven't had any complaints from customers about handle material moving for years.

Great words of advice from Lin & Steve. The only thing I can add is that learning to "read" a piece of handle material is based on your particular desire for a handle design. Have the knife in mind already when you go to buy the material. A drawing of the finished product is best. Too many times I purchased a piece of handle material with no particular idea in mind as to what it would be used for. Most of those are somewhere in the shop in an old milk crate. On a shelf somewhere. I think.......

Anyway, Matthew mentioned moose antler, and I would like to bring up elk antler. I do really like this material because it usually comes in rather large pieces that can be shaped in almost anyway you desire, it takes a dye very easily, and wears like iron. (besides I live in Arizona and it's scattered all over the woods up north)

Brion mentioned removing the pith inside of the antler (probably because it is naturally softer, but I embrace the pith and choose to stabilize it. I have photos of two commissioned orders I did with elk antler here:

http://www.dosgatosdesignsllc.com/#!sharp-stuff

Counting the icons top down and left to right, number 5 and the last photo.

The first is scales on a full tang and the second is through tang with butt cap. Both handles get into the pith material, but that pith is now solid and as hard as the antler. The dying process is multicolored in different stages. I avoid using elk antler crowns as they are often too large for a typical knife handle, unless you can find a spike. I have two of those that are curing and are slated for a carving set. Once sufficiently cured, I will go ahead and stabilize them.

With any antler I prefer material that is from drops not culls, the fresh antler seems to have far more and softer pith. The drops seem to be a bit stabiler with an narrower channel of pith and don't stink quite as much when drilling the pith out.

MP