Unusual Want

[MCarpenter]

We are in the UK and are in the process of producing a new range of traditional hand made penknives. The few remaining craftsmen in Sheffield are now getting on in years but some are still active. We are looking to produce a range with knives with historic identifiable wood for handles. You can get a lot of knife wood blanks from a small piece. A few sound small pieces of a decking plank from an identifiable shipwreck would be ideal. If anybody as any ideas I would be pleased to hear from them. We have wood from 10,000 year old wood from New Zealand bogs, wood from WW1 trenches - that kind of thing. regards malcolm

 

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[PhipsFolly]

Malcolm... Cool idea... I have a large timber from one of the 1715 Fleet wrecks... It washed up onshore after a good storm many years back.

It is a knee timber and weighs probably close to 125 lbs. It also contains several large iron pins as well... It is for sale for $200 if you want it, but I would have to cut it down to a manageable size to ship to you and you would have to cover shipping expenses. Let me know if you want it... Send me a personal message with info on how to contact you and we can go from there...

 

[MCarpenter]

Many thanks

Malcolm... Cool idea... I have a large timber from one of the 1715 Fleet wrecks... It washed up onshore after a good storm many years back.

It is a knee timber and weighs probably close to 125 lbs. It also contains several large iron pins as well... It is for sale for $200 if you want it, but I would have to cut it down to a manageable size to ship to you and you would have to cover shipping expenses. Let me know if you want it... Send me a personal message with info on how to contact you and we can go from there...

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. Ideally what I was looking for would be a couple of pieces of perhaps planking say two feet long from an identifiable wreck. These days people are quite rightly pretty demanding and I will want something that I can say '......xxxxxxx recovered it from the ......'
regards malcolm

 

[History Detective]

I'd love to own a ship's plank from the 1715 fleet! I assume you live in Florida...wish I did.. probably have to take out a loan to pay for the shipping cost though..LOL!

 

[SCDigginWithAK]

We are in the UK and are in the process of producing a new range of traditional hand made penknives. The few remaining craftsmen in Sheffield are now getting on in years but some are still active. We are looking to produce a range with knives with historic identifiable wood for handles. You can get a lot of knife wood blanks from a small piece. A few sound small pieces of a decking plank from an identifiable shipwreck would be ideal. If anybody as any ideas I would be pleased to hear from them. We have wood from 10,000 year old wood from New Zealand bogs, wood from WW1 trenches - that kind of thing. regards malcolm

I'm interested in the WW1 trench wood knife! Do you sell them online? I'd love to have one.

 

[MCarpenter]

Knives

I'm interested in the WW1 trench wood knife! Do you sell them online? I'd love to have one.

Our knives are on Sheffield Knives
The new section on the knives with historic wood handles is not up and running yet. It takes a time to gather wood from around the world and I am having a bit of difficulty getting the wood from Florida. The first knives are being test made at the moment. regards malcolm

 

[MCarpenter]

I am trying to get obtain the wood from a member of the forum in Florida. The problem is the pieces are to big to ship to the UK and it does not take a lot of wood to make penknife scales.So I do not want a big piece and he has large pieces. We are trying to put together a collection of folding knives with wood from around the world but until we actually get the wood you cannot whether it is ok to process. The chap with the wood in Florida has wood about about six feet long so if anybody wants half of the piece I would buy the lot. You can see our knives on Sheffield Knives
We have 40,000 year old wood from the peat bogs of New Zealand, teak decking from the Royal Yacht but like most things it's a struggle. Our post man is a bit bemused as to why planks are coming through the mail.

 

[GatorBoy]

Careful buying plank wood that washes ashore and was not diver salvaged from a wreck site.
There are hundreds of wrecks in Florida many having similar spikes in the deck.
To be sure it is diffinitivly from the 1715 fleet it would had to have come from a context in direct association with other artifacts.

 

[loot and scoot]

A great source for historical wood here in Florida is Wood Flooring, Heart Pine Floors, Luxury Reclaimed Wood Flooring. They recover logs from the rivers that are guaranteed to be between 200 and 500 hundred years old.

 

[captbonnie]

we don't excavate if timbers are found. rare as the environment is not kind to wood. Green Cabin site has the most intact timbers I've seen in area but protected and left in situ. did find a small chunk one year 1715 that came up about midway in the overburden.nothing else around. tagged and turned in and not part of my division but was very interested in the possibility of preserving it. reminds me to check and see what was done. a hard process have read glycol and thought perhaps a resin might do the trick. know the rivers yield cypress well preserved and the beaches often have beautiful driftwood. good idea on your knives - I save wood pieces I have cut when re-doing boats just for the sentiment. perhaps you could custom make from the customers wood? sort of like wrapping the found coin - I don't know - here I am admitting I collect wood scraps and have pieces of driftwood I know exactly where they came from. the piece I mentioned- tagged as wreck site material positive ID no.

 

[Southern_Digger]

My father was a wooden boat carpenter and caulker. He worked on several historic vessels; sometimes saving the wood. Also, he liked to turn wood to make caulking mallets and chisel handles. He passed 6 years ago and his lathe was sold. However, I have a few wood kegs full of cherry wood; teak; mahogany and so forth. My son used to turn wood with him. If my son doesn't get back into it again, I will be selling off these hardwoods. I believe the rarest wood he used was black mahogany. However, I have not seen any in the collection. But, then again, I am not 100% qualified to i.d. the various types of hardwood.

 

[SCDigginWithAK]

My only historic wood is from the flight deck of the USS Yorktown which is pretty cool

 

[aquanut]

My Dad was on the Yorktown in WWII. Also had the WASP sunk under him. Luckily for me he survived the war.

 

[BVI Hunter]

How big a piece needed to make a knife and what type of timber? how hard etc?