Wood handles from the catalog
Wood handles are knife grips made of wood, which CIVIVI calls "a traditional material used in the manufacturing of knife handles." A species word on the Handle row, such as walnut or ebony, is the product data's name for that wood. Böker's knife glossary adds that some are trade names: cocobolo and bubinga each cover several species, and rosewood a whole genus.
Makers name their woods just as plainly: Case lists "Black Curly Oak Wood handles" on a Trapper and a "Solid Walnut handle" on its steak knives, and a CIVIVI product page lists "Black Ebony Wood." Böker shows how far one name can stretch, calling cocobolo "the trade name for the lumber of several related Dalbergia or rosewood species" and bubinga "the trade name of a wood derived from several species of the Guibourtia family."
A trade name like cocobolo says what the wood is called, not which tree it came from; for one knife, the maker's product page is the place to look. Choosing between wood and bone on a traditional knife is the business of bone or wood knife handles.
Böker's glossary speaks to water one species at a time: cocobolo's "exceptionally high oil content" lets it hold up well to moisture, olive wood is "very hard and dense as well as moisture-resistant," and rosewood "must be dried slowly before processing to prevent cracks."
Buck and Böker each document a resin-treated wood. Buck says ebony first went on its 110 and 112 in the 1960s and that in the 1990s it turned to "a resin treated wood." Böker calls Pakkawood "impregnated wood veneers used in knife production to make handle scales" and says it "is impregnated with an epoxy resin." For care, caring for a wood handle gives the routine, and a dried-out handle is the case for restoring oil to a wood handle.