What exactly is Dymondwood?

Ferahgo

Ferahgo

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I have the new Froe in 108, and it has Walnut Dymondwood handles. What exactly IS Dymondwood?
 
"Dymondwood" is the tradename for a product that was produced by Rutland Plywood. Essentially, it is a lamination of very thin veneers, usually birch, impregnated with a resin. The designation Walnut, Cocobolo, etc refers to the color of stain used, not the species of wood. It is a very stable product. Unfortunately, the Rutland factory was destroyed by fire about a year ago. As a result, the future supply of Dymondwood is in doubt.

Use the search function on the forum to get more information. Dymondwood has received a lot of discussion.

Bert
 
Rutland may be down for a bit, but aren't there other companies that make the same product under different trade names?

In any case, the laminated and resin impregnated wood is very strong, tough, and durable. I love this stuff on hunting rifles as it still has some of the warmth of wood and the strength of composite materials.
 
I knew it was a laminate, but I was under the impression the "walnut" "cocobolo" "ebony" and etc. was the top one to three layers of laminate, not only for color(s) but so it has the correct grain. (lets face it, cocobolo, for example, has a difficult to duplicate variation in the colors on any particular piece.)
 
afishhunter said:
I knew it was a laminate, but I was under the impression the "walnut" "cocobolo" "ebony" and etc. was the top one to three layers of laminate, not only for color(s) but so it has the correct grain. (lets face it, cocobolo, for example, has a difficult to duplicate variation in the colors on any particular piece.)
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Yes and no. Generally the terms Rosewood, Cocobola, Heritage Walnut, Cherrywood etc are dye colors, not wood species.

And yes, a few products do have a top laminate wood species such as the Buck 110 & 112 which are Macassar Ebony Dymondwood. I'm not sure about the 113, it had a slab sided Macassar Ebony handle but changed to American Walnut in the 2015 catalog. I have also seen a few knives with an Oak veneer. Two items with an actual Oak veneer that come to mind are the Chuck Buck 405 and a version of the 106 axe from about 2001. You will notice that the few items with a special hardwood top veneer are very flat/slab sided as opposed to normal dyed Dymondwood products which when countoured give a bullseye "fake grain" effect as you cut thru the layers. Generally, I find Buck Inc to be a little coy about handle materials, using "marketing" terms more than true technical data.
 
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bertl said:
"Dymondwood" is the tradename for a product that was produced by Rutland Plywood. ..... the Rutland factory was destroyed by fire about a year ago. As a result, the future supply of Dymondwood is in doubt. Bert
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There must be other suppliers of Dymondwood products, perhaps licensing the trade name "Dymondwood"?
It's been about a year now since the factory burnt and I have seen no change in availability from Buck. I always "ASSUMED" Rutland was the source since the trade name Dymondwood was assigned to them. I can't believe Buck happens to have a multi year supply of product just lying around with the lean manufacturing model.
 
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DeSotoSky said:
There must be other suppliers of Dymondwood products, perhaps licensing the trade name "Dymondwood"?
It's been about a year now since the factory burnt and I have seen no change in availability from Buck. I always "ASSUMED" Rutland was the source since the trade name Dymondwood was assigned to them. I can't believe Buck happens to have a multi year supply of product just lying around with the lean manufacturing model.
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For as little space 8x4 slabs of wood take it wouldn't be to surprising if Buck maintained a multiyear supply. That said, if the factory is down there's no doubt another could license the product. Unless Buck uses the situation to investigate possible superior materials at the same price or less i'd expect Dymondwood to be around for a long time.
 
Time for Joe Houser to write a definitive article on Buck handle materials in a future issue of the BCCI newsletter..... (hint)
 
Time for Joe Houser to write a definitive article on Buck handle materials in a future issue of the BCCI newsletter..... (hint)
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Good idea, DeSoto
 
An Answer from Joe will have to wait as he is on vacation on the Iland of Maui for ten days. Hope he and Maralee have a great time!

jb4570
 
Laminates,,,,, Here is a response from CJ some time back in a thread
about Fibron... Maybe relates to dymondwood.. Just a curious FYI thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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CJ Buck has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - Red Fibron Handles - in the Buck Knives forum of BladeForums.com.

This thread is located at:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=653321&goto=newpost

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
I don't remember the exact year but seems like 97 or 98. They were supposed to be for a subsequent year but we were so excited about the design we pressed them into that current year's new products.

As to Fibron...that was a brand name for the laminated/impregnated birch handles. We use the same material basically from a different source today. ..
The process is very similar to making plywood. You start with sheets of Birch veneer. Then you put those sheets in a vacuum chamber and flood the chamber with resin (and color). The resin is thus sucked into every pore and stabilizes the wood, protecting it from heat and water. The wood acts like the fiber in fiberglass and gives a supporting structure for the resin.

Then you put those resin impregnated sheets under heat and pressure. The resin remelts and welds the sheets together. Based on how you stack them you can get multi-colored effects and if there are contours on the handle it can be a very attractive look. With a 110 being so flat the vendor creates a special top layer for the handle insert and when we switched from real Ebony the impregnated wood consistently looked more like real wood then real wood.

Better look and Better Performance was a no brainer.
 
I rewrote & launched the website for WebbWood.com back in September. WebbWood aims to pick up where Dymondwood sadly left off. They currently have four different densities of dyed laminated birch plywood, ranging from 20 plys per inch to 39 plys per inch, with & without phenolic resin impregnation. There are about 40 different colors available now, with more coming early next year. There are roughly 60,000 different size/density/color combinations available (that can be made to order - that was a heck of a lot to organize into web pages!), they are building up the on-hand inventory, currently HD (High Density, non-phenolic) has the most options available in stock.

From what I've seen, WebbWood is proving very effective in knife handles, and one guy in Canada bought a few pieces to do extensive destructive testing for this usage. He said the heat test (burnish with a fast moving belt) and hammer tests went very well, and he would get back to us when his daily soak-dry-repeat test caused the wood to crack. That was 3 months ago, we haven't heard anything yet.

Please forgive the promotional aspect of this post - just wanted to pass on some info that may be relevant for the original post that opened this thread.
 
^good info, thanks for sharing with us, Sir.

wonder what the buckyeye burlwood setup is top layer of it and then the birch under?
 
DeSotoSky said:
I believe the burlwood handles really are" burlwood", not laminate.
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understood, thank you Sir.

can i assume it's stabilized as well via an epoxy or something of that sort? thank you in advance on this question. i don't want to thank the thread up too much and distract from the topic.:)
 
It was interesting that Packrat mentioned Fibron as I have copies of Camillus "S" cards dated 1985 that mention Fibron.
 
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