what's the best wood for grips/ scabbards? Why?

I asked this exact question to Gus Trim and he said that his experience indicates Poplar is the wood to use. he also advocates cord wrapping the wood too but that's another thing.

when I asked why and observed that poplar was really soft he said, yup and it is springy too so it absorbs the shock better and is less likely to split.

he used to use hardwood handles years ago and not cover them at all. back then he would get swords sent back to him for grip fixes pretty regularly a couple times a year if it was a sword that saw any real use. once he switched to poplar with cord wrap grip failures have almost entirely gone away.

Production katana tend to use poplar too and have had real good success with it which was the inspiration for Gus to go that way. I think the traditional wood is Honoki (spelling?) and I think it is fairly similar to poplar in that it is soft and springy.

as for scabbards poplar works well for them too though I would think you would have a lot more room for variety here as the scabbard/saya is only stressed at the opening and these stresses can be countered by the horn koiguchi on saya and leather or metal re-inforcements on western scabbards.

Funny. Poplar is what I was thinking, and already bought last week. Must've been somewherre here I learned to go with it (maybe even from you Tom).

So anyone else have another wood they love? Ha! (sounds funny when I read that back)

The answer here also depends upon what style of sword. Asian blades, Euros, Middle Eastern?

Poplar seems to usually be a generally safe bet for most sword styles and the wood to use in most general applications.

Honoki is the traditional Japanese wood used (not to be confused with Hinoki which google likes to redirect you to) but white poplar and maple are also used. Honoki has properties that make it work extremely well with swords. Though it is sort of expensive and difficult to get good high quality cuts of it outside of Japan.

There are a few places that sell honoki like Fred Lohman's www.japanese-swords.com/index.htm

Filipino swords tend to have different woods used than others. Handles of Narra and Molave, as well as Gijo Iron Wood are used. With sheaths made from things like Red Pine wood which is light, flexible, and adapts to climate changes.

Persian Shamshir swords might have a handle of ivory, bone, wood or animal horn.

So I would again say it really depends upon what sword style your talking about.