Are stacked leather washer handles easy to maintain?

A

Adaam

Joined
Jul 10, 2011
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15
Just curious, firstly do they last (with maintenance obviously), are they easy to maintain and can they stand up to the kind of abuse that other materials (such as Kraton-G) can? When I say abuse I mean heavy use and sweat, or dirt or water etc. Also, is Kraton-G a good material to make handles from, because I understand that they are impervious to sweat and water etc. but I heard one person say that after a while of using a Kraton-G handled knife in the sun pretty much every day or second day for a year or so it when dry and crumbled. Does this happen and how can I avoid it? Thanks.
 
There are probably hundreds of thousands of knives from the inter-war years and WW-II with leather washer handles that are still perfectly servicable. It is one of the all-time durable styles. The only real enemy would be either extreme dryness or a lot of moisture. If one were more or less indoors for storage, It would last a very long time.
 
HoosierQ said:
There are probably hundreds of thousands of knives from the inter-war years and WW-II with leather washer handles that are still perfectly servicable. It is one of the all-time durable styles. The only real enemy would be either extreme dryness or a lot of moisture. If one were more or less indoors for storage, It would last a very long time.
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As this poster stated = there are possibly a few million blades with leather washer handles .

AND it is one of my prefered handle materials as its comfortable to use and I have never damaged one yet.

BUT then again I dont chop concrete blocks with my blades either.
 
I like leather handles and they are easy to maintain. I use Sno-Seal and have had no problems with cracking or drying out. Sno-Seal also protects the handle from moisture.
 
I've never had any problems with my leather handles. Here's some of my knives (and a hatchet), with leather handles. All of them with the exception of maybe the Air Force knife (top), which is pretty new, have seen a lot of use in the snow. None of them have any noticeable damage. The little Ka-Bar Hunter (second from the top) I actually lost while shoveling snow in January, I had to wait until it melted to find it, and it's still in good shape.

View attachment 229102
 
The leather handles are nice, but I have heard people complain about the leather getting grimy and holding the scent of blood while cleaning game.
 
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