Captain,

That is a beauty piece of walnut.

Black French Walnut!!!!
I'm in For $5 extra

Dennis

French Walnut makes the woodworker in me very happy!

This is getting better all the time; thanks Cap!

Tom Flynn

Couldn't agree more Tom. If you're fortunate enough to ever have fallen deeply in love with the natural beauty of wood how could you not appreciate this? It enhances the overall quality of the entire package. Just like the walnut grips on my SAA Colt, or the different woods on my Les Paul, Martin, & Henderson guitars. The entire package will be incredibly enhanced.
Much appreciated Cap., for the Build and the wood.

Just a thought FWIW.
The eventual winner of this build might want to someday add the matching Toothpick making a Faisal set. French walnut may be a harder piece to find than shop supplied wood. Not saying anything wrong about the suggested wood.

Walnut is offered as an optional shop supplied wood. Buy it from them, and your knife comes with a full RMK warranty..

Michael,
Sounds like an excellent idea to me...

:-)Rocky

"Black French Walnut!!!!"

I think black walnut is native to North America, and French walnut comes from elsewhere. Either one can be darn pretty.

Walnut might have to be stabilized to get around the issues Capt. Chris raised about Osage orange...but I think people are tending to want the piece that he posted photos of.

We can't know for sure which knife JB had at which time, and lots of speculation as to what James Black made for him...and did he have it at the Alamo.

Whatever is agreed to be built here won't be a near "replica" of anything he had.

Still...it will be a classic in its own right.

I vote for A. Lugged Brass Hilt.

Larry

Capt:

With all due respect, I beg to differ with you on the "softness" of Osage Orange otherwise known 'round here as Bois'd Arc or "Boardark".

Attached is a picture of a Boardark post that my Grandfather put in the ground in 1914. As you can see, it is still solid even though the ground around it stays wet 6 months of the year.

You cannot drive a fence steeple into it in fact, you cannot even get a steeple or nail to start. You cannot even scratch it. I have shot it with a .22 and the bullet bounces off it.

Also is a link to some Boardark knife handles. I thought they turned out pretty nice!

Respectfully,
Coach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PScbDKE0V_Y

Somehow I missed this entire build. I got a computer "ugrade and that meant I didn't log in automatically like had been the case and if you aren't logged in, you don't see the member forum. Anyway, the build looks like an interesting way to go.

On the osage orange or "bodark" as my grandfather called it, I can remember him cussing the stuff on a regular basis -- the thorns on the trees were apparently hard enough to puncture a tractor tire so you had to watch out for downed limbs in the pasture grass when you mowed. He also had some ancient bodark fence posts on the farm. Seems like that wood just does not rot. Apologies if this is a derail.