Do diffrent rubbers feel better then others

JTknives

JTknives

Joined
Jun 11, 2006
Messages
8,651
Just stop that right now, you know what i'm talking about. I have been playing around with rubber for handle material and i must say i'm in love. it is just amazing. might not look as good as some ivory or box elder burl but when talking about a user knife i dont think i would ever pass it up. what i'm wondering is if there is better rubbers for handles then others. the rubber i have is kinda soft. when used in a handle you can squish it just a tiny bit if you squese it hard. but it makes the handle just feel so nice. so lets here it what rubber do you prefer.
 
I'm with you on that bro. I must have exactly the same stuff, black, solid texture with a few visible shiny specks when it is cut. I put a couple slabs on the little leather cutter I posted on the 'shop knife' thread and it makes the knife feel like an extension of my hand, it just feels so solid and grippy. I love it too. I asked the guy what hardness it was and he said 50 or maybe it was 60 durometer.
 
i use neoprene. i found some thats a little weathered but it still works great. pm me when to give you a call and i will.
 
I worked at a ORing Manufacturing Co. for 34 years. Neoprene was used for drive belts and it stands up well to abrasion and water applications. EPDM was used in brake systems and some chemical applications. Viton is used in the aerospace industry. It stand up to dramatic changes in temp and UV. I changed all the ORings in both my bikes to Viton. It's is more expensive. Neoprene was $4@LB. and Viton was $23. We only had 60 to 90 duro and they did come in deferent colors.
 
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EPDM absorbs oil and swells and gets sticky. Other than that it is great. Grippy and strong. It can be bonded to steel with 3M pronto CA40H

Buna N Nitrile is inexpensive and durable and oil resistant, but doesn't have good solvent or chemical resistance.

SBR is (I think) what a lot of tires are made of.

Viton is expensive but generally has the best chemical resistance. However, I don't think it is very grippy.

Most thermoplastic elastomers also tend to be a bit slippery, though thermoplastic polyurethane is quite grippy. TPEs generally have poor abrasion resistance.

There are oring sites that show the compatibility of the different rubbers because they're all used for orings. I like Apple Rubber oring.
 
I've used horse stall mat, neoprene shoe sole material and official 90 D. neoprene. All of them fairly dense. I usually drill about 12-16 1/8 inch holes in my full tang knives. I supper glue one slabe on and back drill through the holes with a high speed dremel type tool. I glue the second side on and back drill through the slab and the tag. Using 1/8 inch o-ring material I taper the end and thread through the holes. Stop with about an inch of the o-ring material not pulled through. Coat the inch of o-ring material with super glue, stretch the material and move into the handle back and forth to spread the glue, center and let return to length in hand, cut off. Repeat for all the holes.

Sometimes I dovetail and surface grind a piece of hard rubber into the tang and near the back of the butt covering the high impact zones, with usually two o-ring pins going through the insert and slabs.

This method has worked well for me...Take Care...Ed
 
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Toni Oostendorp, Ed De Pauw and a couple of other smiths in the Netherlands actually use thick blocks of horse stall mat for hidden tang handles and compress it and peen the end of the tang over like you would for a handle made from stacked leather washers.
 
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