mlknives.com Blog

On one of my older blog posts I mentioned my use of Tiger Maple as it is one of my favorite natural hard wood handles to use. One question I get asked allot is “what is a good hold up wood?”..”Dont care about looks, just want something that is hard using.” There are allot of good hard use woods out there but one I favor and found to be very durable is black walnut.
Black walnut has been used for many years in the making of such things as, furniture, gun stocks and grips, game calls, and more. When finished properly it will hold up for years. I have had a Hudson bay camp knife handled in this for some time now. The knife gets hard use, everything from hiking to hunting, It has its normal wear and tear but its still holding up great. Last winter I ran a test to see how well the walnut and steel would take extreme temps. I left two knives out in the elements for a week, with only a coat of mineral oil on the blades. *(The black walnut has had years of Tung oil and mineral oil, from using it.) The weather hit well below zero and we had ice and snow on several of the days. The thing I found after the test was small areas of patina dark spots on the blades that cleaned up easy. The Black walnut was fine, I wiped an dried it off, a little oil, and overall I can say Black walnut holds up great.

thanks for reading

Matt