handle material

A

Abear

Joined
Feb 25, 2002
Messages
114
Hi Guys
I was wondering what you think of wood handles versus horn. How do they compare in terms of balance, weight, scratch resistance, looks, toughness, etc.
I want a horn handle because it seem more exotic and seem to look better, but Bill told me there's a trend towards wood. Anyone want to make a pitch for their favorite material?
 
Hi Abear,
I like wood because it is easier to find products to care for them like linseed oil and hooflex can be sometimes hard to find. Horn is very tough but can crack. These cracks never cause problems and can be filled with epoxie. The wood the kamis use is a hard wood and is also very tough and usually does not crack. I think it comes down to what a person likes because they are both great materials!
 
I like both. Some people have had horn handles crack on them when they brought them into a warm house from cold outside temperatures. I do like the feel of the horn though. Some say that horn handles are more slippery with wet hands. Although one can use some sandpaper to "roughen up" the surface. Depending on the khuk I just hold the handle with my thumb on the angled part of the bolster. It provides a good grip where the knife won't rotate in your hand.

Weight and balance seem to be about the same. I took apart a horn handle slab and the texture was like really hard, tough black toenail. Similar to hard rubber.

With either material it is highly recommended that you treat the handle. With wood linseed oil, tung oil etc. With horn some lanolin based stuff suitable for hooves (hooflex, corona ointment).

My personal opinion is that if you properly treat your handles you won't have a problem with either. Next winter I'm gonna leave a treated horn handled khuk in the car for a month to see what happens. :o However comma I live in an area with relatively mild winters.
 
I think the horn handles can look better just "out of the box". And it's almost as easy to work as wood if you need to take out a annoying bump or something. Some handle shapes are probably just too hard to do in horn.

I haven't been able to easily find the hoof-treatment products in my area. Depends on where you live. Someone suggested the Alberto VO5 hair product in the tube. It's two major ingrededients are petrolatum and lanolin. I looked at other things in the drugstore with lanolin and it seemed the best choice--other skin,hair or nail products had either active drugs like cortisone or possibly drying agents like solvents and long-chain alcohols (being an organic chemist helps here). Nail products are especially bad. Some have found a pharmacy that sold them pure lanolin. Anyway, a little of the Alberto stuff soaks in and in the short time I've had the khuk in a humid climate I've had little problem, a few tiny cracks near the buttcap. I understand some small amount of cracking almost always occurs in new horn handles anyway. It's said that the horn takes epoxy or superglue well.

One advantage of horn for the first khuk is that there's not a heck of a lot you want to do to it. The wood handles usually have very beautiful hardwood hiding under the oil-rouge finish that the kamis have applied to the not too finely finished wood, (they rely on this mixture to smooth out the surface of the wood) and if you're the type to try to bring that out, it kinda takes the knife out of commission for a while....You can see what's involved in the FAQ and "woodchuck" threads here. Lots of quite old knives have well-preserved handles of both materials. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for all your replies guys. I'm getting a better and better idea of what HIK are like. I think I'm leaning towards a wood handle now, since I'm probably too lazy to fix a crack. Wood is good, I took many many wood shop classes from elementary to high school. :)
 
Another vote for wood. I have one horn-handled BAS, and I find it distinctly less comfortable and harder on my hand than either of the two wood-handled khuks that I have. Yeah, the horn looks neat, but there is in fact some very pretty wood too.
 
Abear, both wood and horn have their fans. Both are subject to cracks (usually just surface cracks, that can be sealed with a thread of super glue). The "tail" they follow from Nepal incldes a little jaunt in a cargo bay at over 50,000 ft. and -50° F. Then, they rest in Nevada, in a hot, dry climate for a while, and travel to whatever your environs have in store. The horn can be treated with any ointment for dry animal hooves, found at feed & grain stores, tack & saddle shops or farm coop stores. The wood can be basic - a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil, to a full hand-rubbed gunstock oil finish. Most of the Nepali woods are pretty enough to make this effort very worthwhile, if you like showy wood grain. Once they have acclimated to your local conditions, it takes something extreme to cause a static (non-use) crack. One of the Colo. forumites had some cracking when he left his Khuks in a bag, in the trunk overnight. Colo. sunshine packs some potent radiant energy, and even in cool weather, can run the inside of a car trunk to uncomfortable temps. With very low humidity, the temp falls off rapidly at sundown, and a 70° day (90° in the trunk) with overnight freezing isn't unusual. Give them adequate, if minimal, care and avoid the extremes, and they will look nice and outlast you. Mine that have had cracks repaired, and those bought without flaws, have remained "as wanted", and will serve for years. Do a few searches on "handles", "Hooflex", "Corona", "Horn", etc., etc. and you will get the threads wherein we go to lengths to tell what we do to our handles, and the results. Have fun :D
 
I finally figured out why the first roll was so dark, and am making progress.The little sliding switch on the bottom causes the lense to pop out the front. Tripods are supposeed to have THREE legs (wait 'til I have a talk with that @^^%X at WalMart) and the fillum goes in the back.....there was something else, but I'm tired now...'nuther nap coming up:confused:
 
Don't tell me you bought wunna them two-legged tripods from that snake-oil artist, too? Mama Mia!! :eek:
 
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