Handle Materials

B

Bill_Melater

Joined
Apr 14, 2024
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This is just an open question for anyone who can compare the different handle material offerings by Kailash. Wood vs Micarta (wrapped vs scales) vs Horn, vs Leather, etc. How have they worn for you?

I'm confident the two I've got on order won't be my last so I still need to do a bit of learning. For example I'm surprised to read on the website and other sources alike that horn is more impact resistant than wood. Would any of you say that using an oil that polymerizes in the wood handle brings it on par with horn or is that still way off? I've also never had a micarta handled anything so that is an unknown for me as well. Most of what I've ever owned and used are just hunting knives that quite frankly will never see the same level of use and abuse as chopping or batoning.

Side question for Andrew: How thick/dense are the horn handles? I've only ever made a powder horn for my flintlock and but that's with cow horn not water buffalo. Are the horn handles on a stick tang still pretty hollow and get filled with something?
 
Bill_Melater said:
This is just an open question for anyone who can compare the different handle material offerings by Kailash. Wood vs Micarta (wrapped vs scales) vs Horn, vs Leather, etc. How have they worn for you?

I'm confident the two I've got on order won't be my last so I still need to do a bit of learning. For example I'm surprised to read on the website and other sources alike that horn is more impact resistant than wood. Would any of you say that using an oil that polymerizes in the wood handle brings it on par with horn or is that still way off? I've also never had a micarta handled anything so that is an unknown for me as well. Most of what I've ever owned and used are just hunting knives that quite frankly will never see the same level of use and abuse as chopping or batoning.

Side question for Andrew: How thick/dense are the horn handles? I've only ever made a powder horn for my flintlock and but that's with cow horn not water buffalo. Are the horn handles on a stick tang still pretty hollow and get filled with something?
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Hope you dont mind me butting in on your questions Bill . Personally Ive only ever owned Water Buffalo horn and wood handled khukuris as on a personal basis Im a traditionalist so prefer the natural materials and I have to say that the white rosewood handle on my only Kailash khukuri to date is one of the best executed handles Ive ever seen with absolutely perfect fit and finish . Like all knife handles both horn and wood need to be looked after every now and then depending on how much practical use they have and what climatic environments they will be used in . I treat my horn handles with regular use of rubbed in baby oil using my hands and the wood Ive started to apply a coating of boiled lindseed oil now and then , this will hopefully prevent any shrinkage . As far as Micarta , I wouldnt really know but the way I understand it is that micarta wrap can be an absolute advantage when used in hostile environments such as jungle , desert and arrid regions for its grip qualities and also as it is resistant to rot , mildew and water apparently , I would it would also appeal aesthetically to certain people .
 
bigeard09 said:
Hope you dont mind me butting in on your questions Bill . Personally Ive only ever owned Water Buffalo horn and wood handled khukuris as on a personal basis Im a traditionalist so prefer the natural materials and I have to say that the white rosewood handle on my only Kailash khukuri to date is one of the best executed handles Ive ever seen with absolutely perfect fit and finish . Like all knife handles both horn and wood need to be looked after every now and then depending on how much practical use they have and what climatic environments they will be used in . I treat my horn handles with regular use of rubbed in baby oil using my hands and the wood Ive started to apply a coating of boiled lindseed oil now and then , this will hopefully prevent any shrinkage . As far as Micarta , I wouldnt really know but the way I understand it is that micarta wrap can be an absolute advantage when used in hostile environments such as jungle , desert and arrid regions for its grip qualities and also as it is resistant to rot , mildew and water apparently , I would it would also appeal aesthetically to certain people .
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I don't see it as butting in at all. Where I'm at, any information is helpful. Have you had either longer than the other or used them fairly hard? Not to diminish anything but fit and finish can be undone over years if the material isn't up to the task.

All of mine have a wood handle which for now hasn't been a problem but I haven't had them terribly long. I do live where it can be warm but also get very cold (sometimes in the same week depending on the season) so I'm trying to play the long game. These blades come all the way from Nepal and so rehandling would be a problem. That's one advantage of a traditional hidden tang.

Maybe one day when get up and going on it, I'll be good enough at blade making and handle carving to do the work myself but I'm not going to assume anything at this time.
 
To be fair Bill Ive only ever used a couple of khukuri as practical use blades in a bushcraft medium use environments , ie cutting , chopping medium size branches and battoning and they stood up well . With companies like Kailash Blades , Tora and GGK you usually get a well made , well forged and heat treated blade with good fit and finish with a good balance which goes a long way whenputting it to practical use . Plenty of people use Kailash blades in harsher use and are pleased with the results so sticking with a reputable company is the way to go .
I have also used many other types of knives over many years and as with any specific model khukuri use them within their limits without over abusing them , clean and maintain them after use and theres no reason a well made khukuri wont last a lifetime .
 
I wouldn't say that the addition of a polymerizing oil will help really. The issue with wood is not so much surface hardness and toughness but that upon impacts it chips and cracks (particularly handle rings, butt flares etc) in a way that horn is a lot more resistant to just from the way the fibres bundle together. Surface treatments don't go deep enough to make a difference in my view. You could stabilise a handle with very low viscosity resins etc but it's a very involved process and that stage the handle is a lot heavier and micartalike.
The tradeoff with horn is that it is more prone to cracking and warping due to environmental pressures (temerpature, air pressure, humidity) and requires a bit more care to keep in good health even when stored. It's also heavier.

We only use the far end of the buffalo horn and don't use the part near the skull where it is properly hollow. I feel that the inner core is a bit less dense but it is still generally a uniform solid mass. We have to burn our tangs in to get through it. If there are any voids around the tang afterwards they'd likely be small, concentric flakey gaps and would be filled with the resin when we glue in our tangs.
 
Ah. I was under the impression that something like Tru oil or any oil really would soak in a lot more. On that note, I usually cut my first 5 coats of oil (or less with thinner materials) with 50/50 turpentine (especially with pure tung oil) to help it penetrate but, I don't know if it will mess with the resin you use? Laha I think it is?

I was referring more to the shock and impact of use instead of external impacts (dropping, banging into things etc.) and those stresses being what cracks or splits the material so I may have misunderstood what was meant by "impact resistant". And don't get me wrong, I'm not about to use my handle as a hammer.

I think it would be safe to say that micarta is king (modern material after all) but like bigbeard I do like traditional materials so I'm trying to get a gauge for what happens over time even provided the material is properly cared for and without factoring in senseless abuse outside of the expected use of the tool. I'm an Industrial Designer by profession and that line between letting your users go stupid with something and departing from original task and purpose can drift pretty quickly.
 
As I understand it Laha hasn't been used for some time in the larger houses, with epoxy resin being the preferred choice. It is a lot more durable in short and long term and also has better bond. Laha has the benefit of being softenable in boiling water so you can refit your own handles easily and non destructively, however it also eventually becomes brittle and crumbly and needs new laha applied which doesn't make a lot of sense in a modern western user context. For us we're happy to take the superior properties of epoxies and just deal with a harder job if rehandling is needed. Typically rehandling occurs when a handle is broken, so cracking it in two is no great loss at that point.
If you're interested I can ask the team about laha and try and track down a date when it went out of use and in what capacity it remains in use. I'd say there's been at least 10 years of epoxy use at khhi.

I think both handles hold up generally just as well as each other to impacts from chopping (internal strain). Here the grain orientation is a lot better in both cases and there's a lot of supporting material around the tang to help keep it together and avoid splitting. handle and tang design is the more relevant factor in this kind of failure mode (not too wide tang, not too skinny a handle, well centred tang etc).

From a durability standpoint micarta is the king, however I believe all the other handle materials have a lot to offer. They're all lighter than micarta and also are capable of higher polishes. They bring their own unique aesthetics and hand feel. They're all strong enough for actual use and have the longevity to outlive a user in our books- otherwise we wouldn't be using them.

Things can definitely go astray when you start to prioritise fringe use cases and fantasy utility rather than actual daily primary utility. SUV's, overbuilt knives, people riding dual suspension mountainbikes because they need to go "off-road" around the local gravel paths near their houses. As industrial designers utility, performance, user experience are crucial to us and seeing people using things so ill fitting for their needs can be hard. However I think that in some ways it's a reality of the current state of capitalism and consumer culture that it hasn't been about actual needs for some time but rather imagined, manufactured, marketed needs as well as consumption to alter and reinforce identity.

Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
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I think for general historical knowledge I'd like to know if it's not too much trouble if you happen to ask in passing. You do quite enough answering my numerous questions. Certainly no need to get down to any hard date. I'd be more interested in generally how long it would take for it to degrade since nothing ever comes up when I search on it.

It's more of a failure mode over time question of the material, not necessarily a Kailash specific question but you are the ones offering those materials on Khukuri so it's all in relation to the typical use Khukuri see. Maybe that's an arbitrary delineation.

Hard to tell if the it's the dog or the tail doing the wagging sometimes. Both as I saw it when I was doing hand tools. At least for my part, I tend to take an empathetic (although frustrated) view on the people who want something overbuilt (often confused with "built right"). You spend money on something you'd like to know is going to be there for you especially if you can only get one and you don't really know enough about what you need yet in order to cut back. Some things only come with experience which is where I am with Khukuri. It's like me years ago when I realized big knives aren't really that great for a hunt. Or some choppers I've bought where being thick sounded good at first but something built like a rock often chops like one too. Then you get something smaller and proper edge geometry suddenly makes sense. Until now I've never had anything I've liked enough to care about learning what to expect on the long haul of years to come.
 
Bisnu says that KHHI stopped using laha from 2008 and that he thinks that they were the first to start using epoxy- after this other houses began adopting it. This is a general trend in Nepal- makers are slow to try new things and resistant to experimentation but quick to copy.
He isn't aware of it becoming crumbly over time as I have read but he has said that laha is prone to cracking free after impacts like being dropped out of the hand. This could be describing the same brittleness that I have seen dsicussed. It is still in use in some rural and remote areas, however he isn't aware of any export makers still using it. Despite not using laha currently the skills are not lost and we could make using laha at customer request. I have spoken with an english collector who makes his own locally and rehandles bare antique blades using it.
Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
Thanks for the info! Matt Easton actually had a video where he had bunch of antiques set out and what I presume is Laha was still holding strong so it must be decent stuff.

Something I noticed on the FAQ page: you say you can get bamboo shoot. How would you say that compares to rosewood in terms of durability, etc.? I'm a bit surprised it wouldn't be a more common handle material?
 
It's certainly great stuff and works really well for a natural and relatively unprocessed material.
We have only worked with bamboo shoot once and it's so rarely used that there isn't much information from other makers' interactions with it so I can't really comment on durability. The main draw card of bamboo shoot is that it's got a really interesting texture and aesthetic and is already in a pretty good shape for a knife handle. You can get pieces that are gently curved with swollen ends for example. This is a problem for making a handle which is khukuri shaped because (just like bone) there isn't as much capability to remove material and shape the handle exactly how you want it. You sort of have to work with the shape of the piece you have which is quite limiting, however it works well alongside a more rustic and villagery build though.
 
So I prefer the natural look of wood and horn.
I have two with wood handles and one with horn.
Kailash’s fit and finish is exceptional. I would imagine micarta to be just as durable.
Just be aware that the horn handles do need to be oiled every once and awhile to prevent shrinkage. Just like stag or any other natural material. I slap some raw linseed oil on my wood handles to to clean and protect them.
 
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Mine actually just arrived today. Both are wood handles so I'm in the tung oil vs. tru oil debate. Have you had yours long or used them hard?

Just as an FYI, I do use 100% natural tung oil but I have no experience with either for any long term and/or outdoor use. Tung oil can penetrate deeper but tru oil sits more on the top. Rosewood is naturally oily so I don't know what it means for either. I know once I start one, I'll need to stick to it.
 
I haven't got any personal experience with either sorry. It is definitely hard to penetrate with oils- maybe this is because it's dense or maybe it's because it is already oily.
 
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