Hi there,

I am currently making a scabbard of Rimu (a wood native to New Zealand) and was wanting to know if anyone out there knows of its suitability for scabbards. I recently read in another thread that certain woods are high in acid and therefore not ideal for use as scabbard material and want to know how Rimu fares in this regard.

Cheers, Adam S.

Hi Adam

I would avoid Rimu unless it is heart Rimu; the stuff usually used for furniture is soft rubbish, you can dent it easily with a finger nail. I'm not sure about acidity though.

A wood I would thoroughly recommend, and I have used, is Willow. I got some slats from a NZ cricket bat maker (sorry, I can't remember who it was now, it was years ago) and it is great - low density, straight grained, easy to work with, and tough yet not brittle. I thought of it because of the pounding cricket bats take, then I found it was used historically too (for Anglo-Saxon scabbards at least, and it may well have been used into the later middle ages).

Thanks for the info Peter - I had thought that Rimu was a reasonably hard wood, but my knowledge of wood types is rudimentary at best. As I've already made a start on this one ( I couldn't wait) I'll probably finish it, I could use the practise anyway. Willow sounds good, I'll chase it up. Oh, by the way, the Rimu i used was cheap architrave slats from Placemakers, probably not the best quality stuff I quess.

Cheers, Adam S.

I have a seax with a rimu grip, and while I'm not about to pull it apart to look at the tang I can say, for what it's worth, that the surrounding hilt components show no sign of discolouration after several years.