Cypress Knife Strip 2.75 - Long Edition

Looking... sharp...

Someone in Florida contacted me recently asking if I could make her a knife strip from cypress. I said sure, but I don't have any cypress. She mailed me a board (it's more common down there than it is up here), and I made a knife strip for her.

A lot about knife strips have been written here, here, here, here, and here. (I need a tattoo that says "oxford commas for life).

Read on:

Does that seem knife strip seem bigger than usual?

Why yes it is! Thanks for noticing.

She said "please make 24 inches long if you can. I have a lot of knives." Well, we didn't quite get 24" (there were some imperfections in the piece I had to work around... it's a risk you take with reclaimed wood). But we got close, and she will be able to put up a lot of knives.

Reclaimed wood is awesome, but has a few drawbacks, including the possibility that some might not be salvagable

You might be saying, "Jon, in your cypress post you just said that knife things aren't good uses for cypress." I did not say that. I said that cypress makes bad cutting boards, but your point is well taken. The reason knives and cypress don't mix extremely well is because knives are sharp and cypress is soft. Take care putting you knives back, or you'll nick the wood.

However, I think that's the kind of thing that lends the board character. The scar above your eye might tell a story, for example of how someone (not naming any names) jumped Joey's route in the 9W-Cannibals Marquette University Intramural Flag Football practice, causing an eye socket-to-chin collision that required five stitches (sorry you needed six Joey). The scars on your knife strips tell stories of food and friends and life and love. They're good marks.

Cypress' straight, horizontal grain, looks great against the perpendicular lines of the knife

Am I just dropping gratuitous photos into the post now?

Yep.