How Important Are Liners in a Folding Knife?

They’re not important at all. Linerless knives have been around for a while and I haven’t read of any issues with them.
 
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I highly doubt I'll ever get to the design limit of any of my knives, so making them theoretically stronger doesn't matter. Kinda the idea of 500HP if you only drive in the downtown core of a city. Why bother? If its "because I like it" groovy baby, you do you. But any other justification is a little self congratulatory in my opinion.
 
In a well designed knife the material and design will dictate whether liners are needed. It's not a blanket issue, I don't think. Just market choice, in the end.
 
"How Important Are Lners in a Folding Knife?"

Not very important. They certainly add strength but if you need that much strength in a folding knife, you are using the wrong tool.

Some of my most used folders are linerless.
 
I whittle using plastic handled (no liners) CS Tuff Lite folders and I abuse the crap out of them. I often sort of pry with those knives (I crack out chips of wood when it suits me using a levering action, for example) and they've never shown any sign of faltering. For any reasonable pocket knife task the average pocket knife is already wildly overbuilt (much less Medford-style stupidity).
 
007Airman said:
I would add that on a liner lock, liners are very important.
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This is technically correct, which is the best kind of correct, but I would then have to also argue that my slipjoint knives are now officially linerless liner lock knives.
 
evilgreg said:
This is technically correct, which is the best kind of correct, but I would then have to also argue that my slipjoint knives are now officially linerless liner lock knives.
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...wouldn't that make it a frame lock?:8
 
oh, and this
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I prefer folders with metal liners because I like the feel of solidness they add.
But function-wise, liner-less is fine.
 
I was wondering if the Buck 112 Pro Slim in micarta would need them, the handle feels very light but sturdy when I hold it. I believe I was not used to the light weight and thought it at first needed liners, but after normal use, notice I said normal use, it is just fine. I even though of getting the black g10 version to see if it would be stiffer/stronger. Any thoughts? It is a lock back.
 
cbach8tw said:
I was wondering if the Buck 112 Pro Slim in micarta would need them, the handle feels very light but sturdy when I hold it. I believe I was not used to the light weight and thought it at first needed liners, but after normal use, notice I said normal use, it is just fine. I even though of getting the black g10 version to see if it would be stiffer/stronger. Any thoughts? It is a lock back.
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Micarta and G10 are equally as good in a linerless pocket knife in my book, so long as they are used properly as folding knives. I think in a very technical sense the g10 will be stronger but for knife use the difference seems irrelevant. I wouldn't think getting one over the other for strength would be worth it unless you just want another knife :)
 
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Comeuppance said:
Fiber-reinforced fibers make liners not a necessity, as long as the handle is designed to be robust enough. My Recon 1 is all G10, and it's easily one of the toughest knives I own.

I think it can be hard to escape the mentality of "plastic handles" and be concerned about brittleness or deformation under stress, but I'd challenge you to snap 1/4" thick piece of G10 with your bare hands. FRN and G10 are 100% suited to basically anything but a bearing-pivot knife, and all the latter would require is a metal washer between the bearings and the polymer handle.
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We knives handled it beautifully on their WE Ignition framelock model. On the polymer front scale side they put a teardrop metal insert in the pivot. The stop pin runs through the ‘tail’ of the drop and the bearings rotate on the ‘round bulb’ of the teardrop. The teardrop shape naturally doesn’t rotate in the cutout in the g10 it sits in.

Then they ran the ambidextrous clip off the butt standoff.

Masterpiece
 
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