Best bang for your buck handle material?

Rennd

Rennd

Joined
Jan 22, 2014
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Which handle materials would you guys say are the most profitable to use in a knife handle? As in, fairly low cost, but better yield than something like g10? Thanks in advance.
For a folding knife, by the way.
 
G10 is hard to beat. The cost isn't high at all for it, and it shapes/machines/finishes easily. Micarta is less expensive but is is a lot tougher to work with.

Many stabilized woods are also a good choice.
 
Profit comes from providing a high level of craftsmanship and developing demand for your work.

There's not a whole lot of profit in knife handles (or blades for that matter) dependent on material. Use whatever people want and charge them accordingly for the material they prefer. The labor involved is pretty much the same... except for natural materials that require a lot of finishing steps, so don't forget to charge for that extra time.
 
Has anybody ever used cutting board material, the plastic ones. I know its soft and may not glue well but I can get some that's brown for nothing.
 
Ask 10 makers you'll likely get 10 answers.

Fossil ivory gives me the best bang for the buck, by far! :D
 
For me the best bang for the buck is scraps. I use cut offs and pieces left from previous projects, and they come together as new combinations. Waste not, want not... and it gives me a chance to exercise some creativity.
 
You go Tryp....................

You can't ever beat imagination+free!!!

Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
 
If I was going to suggest one handle material to a new maker working on getting his knives up to snuff, I would suggest buying a 2-3 foot board of nice cocobolo and cutting the whole board into handle blocks. The blocks can be split into scales as needed. Cocobolo looks good, works easily, needs no finish or stabilizing, and is a popular wood. Woodcraft sells it by the board reasonably, as do many ebay sellers. A 6" X 36" board will make about 20 handles.
 
bladsmth said:
If I was going to suggest one handle material to a new maker working on getting his knives up to snuff, I would suggest buying a 2-3 foot board of nice cocobolo and cutting the whole board into handle blocks. The blocks can be split into scales as needed. Cocobolo looks good, works easily, needs no finish or stabilizing, and is a popular wood. Woodcraft sells it by the board reasonably, as do many ebay sellers. A 6" X 36" board will make about 20 handles.
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Some people have a very severe reaction to the oils in Cocobolo dust. I would'nt buy a bunch of it without working some first. If it does'nt affect you, I agree with everything Stacy said....
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if my brother was allergic, but I doubt I would be. I might as well try it first, though, it would be a good idea.

I'm actually asking this so I can give some material to a professional as a gift, he's transitioning from primarily Japanese ito wraps to some solid handles.
 
I'd agree with Bladsmith. If Cocobolo proves thought to work with there is Zircote and Bocote each having some of the same characteristics of Cocobolo without the itches.
 
tryppyr said:
For me the best bang for the buck is scraps. I use cut offs and pieces left from previous projects, and they come together as new combinations. Waste not, want not... and it gives me a chance to exercise some creativity.
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I always have to preface what I say around these parts by the fact that I'm not a knifemaker. I'm an artist that uses the advice I find here to create works in metal, wood and stone.

Now that that's out of the way, I have to say that tryppyr has given some fantastic advice here. Waste not, want not indeed. And it's an opportunity to learn and expand your design vocabulary. To use a second cliche, "Limitations drive creativity." In my limited experience, this is true.
 
How do you define "Best bang for your buck"?

Natural wood probably is the least expensive handle material. However, if you want a handle material that is highly desirable to collectors and results in a quick sale, I would say carbon fiber. It crosses over several collector genres, is not affected by humidity or temperature, looks great when finished correctly and has high resale value. Cost per folder is less than $10 for a pair of scales.

Chuck
 
Good call Chuck. I'm not a huge fan of the stuff on knives, but that does nothing to detract from the fact that it is very popular. Even better, it still considered somewhat exotic.

For a folder, cf is going to be hard to top. Wood doesn't seem very appealing on a modern folder to me.
 
My best "bang for the buck" scale material comes from the cutoff and scrap bin of my local hardwood vendor. He is a specialty vendor of exotic hardwoods - most of his business is the construction and furniture-making trades, with a lot of stuff for the woodturning guys, too.

They keep a big 10'x10' bin in the warehouse where the toss all the end-cuts, mis-cuts, cutoffs, damaged, and scrap pieces. I drop by as often as I can and pick up nice, but blemished/oddly-shaped blocks of quilted maple, walnut, purpleheart, mahogany, bocote, and padauk. Each piece, no matter what size and material is $1.

Sometimes, you have to cut off a lot of unusable wood around the bad spots and square/flatten them with the band saw. But I've pulled dozens and dozens of usable scales out of there.

TedP
 
One mans trash is an other mans treasure.
Cut off bits etc. I can get more free leather for stacked handles then I will ever use.
In the winter I cut birch bark of a fallen tree. Can´t beat free and it looks good.
 
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