CF vs G10

It is my impression that G10 is more durable. No science or facts. Just an opinion.
 
Why this stuff gets confusing is because ultimate tensile strength is stated by "area", not weight. Specific strength is stated in terms of strength to weight ratio.

Strength to weight ratio is very important if you are making something structural that needs to be light - like an airplane wing.

But if you are making a 1/8" thick knife scale, you are talking ultimate tensile strength, which ignores weight. These are the numbers knife people should care about, because we care about how big things are, not how much they mass.

Carbon fiber is twice as strong as glass by weight, but only about 1/3 more by volume.



HOWEVER, even if carbon is ultimately stronger than glass, it is more brittle. So once you strike both composites, glass fiber will absorb the damage better than carbon.


For a hand tool, I would always choose the tougher glass fiber over the stronger but more fragile carbon fiber. It will actually survive more damage than carbon. Because of that, glass isn't damaged as much by cutting, grinding and machining like carbon fiber is - so even if the carbon started stronger, by the time its been vibrated and torn through a lot of that strength is decreased.



Airborne carbon fibers are so nasty for people's health I feel bad for anyone who has to grind them for a living.
 
craytab said:
It is my impression that G10 is more durable. No science or facts. Just an opinion.
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Well that goes to use too. CF makes a great F1 car (till you back it into a wall) but riding around in a pocket all day?

Something like G-10 hides wear, dirt and other day to day incidents to keep looking presentable longer.
 
For whatever they may be worth, here are some numbers from McMastercarr, an industrial hardware and materials supplier. They sell a wide variety of materials (including G10 and CF), with government certification if required by the buyer.

..........................TENSILE STRENGTH............IMPACT STRENGTH..........COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH..........FLEXURAL STRENGTH

G10.........................39,000 psi....................5.5-9.5 ft.-lb/in..................35,000-68,000 psi......................45,000-55,000 psi



High-strength............40,000 psi..........................not rated............................60,000 psi................................80,000 psi
lightweight,
flexible CF

High-strength............120,000-175,000 psi...........not rated.......................75,000-128,000 psi...................89,000-174,000 psi
lightweight
rigid CF


Of course these numbers don't apply to every possible weave pattern of Carbon Fiber, I think some patterns are more for looks than actual strength.


As for knife handles, I doubt anyone would ever need to use a knife in a manner where it would make a difference between the strength of G10 handles or CF handles.
 
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Danke42 said:
Well that goes to use too. CF makes a great F1 car (till you back it into a wall) but riding around in a pocket all day?

Something like G-10 hides wear, dirt and other day to day incidents to keep looking presentable longer.
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I only have one CF handled knife. Lots of G10. I also feel g10 gets more grippy when wet.
 
I think there was a pretty good walk through on scale material here a while ago in one of the makers sub-forums with wood vs. micarta, vs. G-10 in the wet and the cold and with or without gloves to highlight each material's strengths and weaknesses.

Esse? Daniel Fairly? Terrio? One of those I think.
 
All three materials are well suited for knife scale production.
CF is the lightest, micarta the grippiest and all three look better with a high polish finish (but also have less grip when finished this way).
 
Danke42 said:
I think there was a pretty good walk through on scale material here a while ago in one of the makers sub-forums with wood vs. micarta, vs. G-10 in the wet and the cold and with or without gloves to highlight each material's strengths and weaknesses.

Esse? Daniel Fairly? Terrio? One of those I think.
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That would be a fun read. Link?
 
From a standpoint of engineering properties, carbon fiber is significantly stronger than G10. There's no arguing that. In practical application on a knife handle, carbon fiber is more prone to damage as a direct result of that greater strength. That greater strength serves to make the carbon fiber perform as a more brittle material when exposed to impact damage. Whether unsupported, as in a liner-less knife design, or supported on a stainless steel liner (a material with significantly greater impact resistance), a thin layer of carbon fiber will tend to perform "beneath its pedigree". All things considered, if you're destroying your CF knife handles due to impact damage, you should probably have your knives taken away before someone gets hurt :p.

In a further practical application, to say one is stronger than another is to essentially babble nonsense. There are so many variables in the composition of both carbon fiber and G10 due to resin hardness and fiber diameter/length, it's impossible to crown one general material type as the winner.

It's like trying to say what breed of dog is the best. At the end of the day, it comes down to opinion and personal experience which are hardly empirical measurements. Ultimately (and hopefully) the best dog is the one that's yours.
 
VanDammet said:
Wow aleforme...that's G10?!? I take back what I said about it looking "cheap"...that stuff looks amazing. Are you sure that's not Micarta or some sort of dyed exotic stabilized hardwood? Did you Google this &-or learn about this in a college setting?? That stuff is beautiful.
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No Google but I did go to college.

This is from Jesse Jarosz, the knife maker. I actually bought this used from an individual but I do have a certificate from Jesse saying it's G10. He does some amazing stuff. Here is another photo. Looks like leather to me.

DecyJ7P.jpg
 
Hackenslash said:
From a standpoint of engineering properties, carbon fiber is significantly stronger than G10. There's no arguing that. In practical application on a knife handle, carbon fiber is more prone to damage as a direct result of that greater strength. That greater strength serves to make the carbon fiber perform as a more brittle material when exposed to impact damage. Whether unsupported, as in a liner-less knife design, or supported on a stainless steel liner (a material with significantly greater impact resistance), a thin layer of carbon fiber will tend to perform "beneath its pedigree". All things considered, if you're destroying your CF knife handles due to impact damage, you should probably have your knives taken away before someone gets hurt :p.

In a further practical application, to say one is stronger than another is to essentially babble nonsense. There are so many variables in the composition of both carbon fiber and G10 due to resin hardness and fiber diameter/length, it's impossible to crown one general material type as the winner.

It's like trying to say what breed of dog is the best. At the end of the day, it comes down to opinion and personal experience which are hardly empirical measurements. Ultimately (and hopefully) the best dog is the one that's yours.
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Truth! [emoji106]
 
Hackenslash said:
It's like trying to say what breed of dog is the best. At the end of the day, it comes down to opinion and personal experience which are hardly empirical measurements. Ultimately (and hopefully) the best dog is the one that's yours.
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You lost me with this statement about which breed of dog is best....as if there weren't very clearly one breed leaps & bounds above all other breeds = the mighty Shih tz-oodle!! And in a recent triple blind study, 84% of Shih tz-oodles tested preferred micarta & wood (and that awesome bulletproof G10 stuff) over both CF & G10, so this whole argument is somewhat moot.
 
VanDammet said:
You lost me with this statement about which breed of dog is best....as if there weren't very clearly one breed leaps & bounds above all other breeds = the mighty Shih tz-oodle!! And in a recent triple blind study, 84% of Shih tz-oodles tested preferred micarta & wood (and that awesome bulletproof G10 stuff) over both CF & G10, so this whole argument is somewhat moot.
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I have a a Cockapoo, which by logical reasoning, means a Shih tz-oodle should syntactically be called a Shih-tzapoo. I thnk both a Cockapoo and an appropriately named Shih-tzapoo would tend to be attracted to Carbon Fiber for it's weight advantages and modern,sophisticated appearance, in an urban EDC. This supported by my assumption that one cannot find a genuine CRK Sebenza with a G10 handle.
 
silverds said:
I have a a Cockapoo, which by logical reasoning, means a Shih tz-oodle should syntactically be called a Shih-tzapoo. I thnk both a Cockapoo and an appropriately named Shih-tzapoo would tend to be attracted to Carbon Fiber for it's weight advantages and modern,sophisticated appearance, in an urban EDC. This supported by my assumption that one cannot find a genuine CRK Sebenza with a G10 handle.
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6 times out of 10, my yellow lab will retrieve a carbon fiber handled knife, and everyone knows yellow labs are the best dogs.
 
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