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Handle Materials – Poll

I love G10!!! It is truely an excellant material for knife handles & I personally find G10 good looking.
 
Ken,

The only reason I'm kinda sick of FRNR (Zytel) is that I'm finally starting to add knives with different handle materials to my collection, i.e. G10, Micarta. I think it works really well as a handle material - strong, inexpensive, and somewhat grippy, but I'm beginning to like G10 better.
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Shawn
"Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless."

 
Definately wood and horn for looks for me.

Grip, either sharp handcheckered wood or zyntel with rubber inserts.

General use and feel under normal circumstances, wood or micarta, some of the new alumininum alloys are pretty good too.
 
I like many kinds of materials, most of them are in knives I have yet to buy. G-10 felt good when I handled the Benchmade CQC7. Carbon fiber was surprising. I thought the texture can be felt. The one I got to fondle was SOG Jet Edge.

Stag (don't have any knives with that, either) is something I've only recently began to want. Somehow I have the impression that "smooth, but jigged" stag (like in Case Vintage Stag series) could be had with some kind of "surfacial" texture that would be kinda hard to feel. Something like untextured Zytel. Could anyone tell me, if I'm completely lost here?

I've never got to touch mother of pearl, but I sure wouldn't mind having a knife with pearl scales.

What exactly is oosic? I now (after Snickersnee's comment) have some kind of an idea, but I need to know for sure.

Kraton really is something for a non-slip grip. How is checkered Micarta (I've heard that at least Busse's Battle Mistress has a handle like that) when compared with Kraton?

Jani
 
Thought you might like to see some examples.
patrolmen.jpg

Black linen Micarta is my favorite (top Patrolman). It is also very grippy, if beadblasted. White paper (middle Patrolman is very nice looking, and warm. The best grip, when wet, is Neoprene (bottom Patrolman).


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Lynn Griffith-Tactical Knifemaker
Winner of "Best Tactical Knife" at 1999 PKA show
My website
See my award winning "Spec Ops Tanto" in Gallery 3 of my website
GriffithKN@aol.com

 
"3000+ members and less than forty have an opinion about what they
want to grab when hoding onto a knife? Al least we got a better
responce than the blade geometry thread, but come on!"

Do you really want to read 3,000 posts saying, "I like wood, G-10, and micarta," in varying order? Why???

You could write a simple Basic program that would generate a file like that for you to read ... make it as long as you want....
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It always surprises me that anyone likes Kraton. I can't use it at all because I sometimes use DEET, but besides that I don't like the feel of the stuff. Besides, it wears rapidly.

It surprises me how many people seem to think wood is only suitable for knives that are never used, too. Wood handles can take a lot of abuse, let alone use.

-Cougar Allen :{)
 
Dad made a knife out of a file when I was 40 or so years younger. He used old credit cards for spacers, red & white, and leather shoe sole material for the handle with an aluminum but-cap. That knife has been in salt-water, deer, ducks, various and sundry fish, etc. My grandfather broke the blade tip off hacking a very large red fish into smaller pieces using the knife with a hammer. I still have that knife, with the broken blade. The handle still looks good and holds firm in the hand, wet or dry. I guess that it has my favorite handle.
I have gotten the wife Forschner kitchen knives with the molded handles, corpral tunnel for both of us. The large handles work well for us. I have knives with plastic, Ti, carbon fiber, wood, stag, and ivory scales. I like all of them for different reasons.

Ask questions, listen to all of the answers, and make a decision on the handle material. The most important thing is to take care of the handle material and it should last almost forever.

Dwight

 
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