Olive knife, or don't get cocky with wood

I've done a few knives now, I think more than a dozen. I've worked with paduak, walnut, oak, ash, and a few others. When my friend Mark showed me a piece of olive wood in a bargain bin at the local Woodcrafter I went for it. I then proceeded to become that wood's b!@#$.

Olive has beautiful grain, a lovely warm color, amazing feel when polished up and amazing smell. It is gorgeous. It works by hand pretty well, and I now know why all the sources I have since found for it are in the turning sections of wood stores and online catalogs. That beautiful grain makes cutting the stuff into scales for a scale tang knife interesting. I had a customer who wanted a knife with an Italian feel. My wife suggested I use the Olive, and I thought perfect! This is what happened four times, including after I had it scaled and polished up ready to go out for a deadline.


As you can see the wood cracked. A lot. It split on the grain very easily. After much swearing, running out to buy another block of wood, and throwing one of the broken scales violently in my garage (its the one NOT pictured), I got it to work. By cutting the scales thicker than I normally would and trimming down after they had been mounted I was able to get a clean and stable piece on the knife. After sanding and polishing this stuff looks gorgeous. Mark was right, it cleans up brilliantly. The grain stands out and it is warm and soft to the touch.

Here's the final product:

With flash-


and without -


Sheath is black veg tan and is going out the door tomorrow, in time for the customer's needs.