I Am Officially a C Tek Fan!

[redsquid2]

Seems like I first saw C tek on an online supplier site. That was about a year ago. I read the description of the material, and I thought it would be good tough stuff and it looked pretty cool, too. I never bought any, because I did not notice any custom makers here on BF using it. I figured there must be some drawback.

In the last month or so, I have seen a couple of C Tek handles that just blew my mind. I normally like natural wood and G10 best, but the "tech" look of C Tech really impresses me. A good example is what BA Custom just posted: Viper Hunter.

Unless there are some serious drawbacks to this material, I will be ordering some.

What's your take?

Andy

 

[Varga Knives]

No personal experience but Dan Fairly made a beauty. You can probably find it in his forum. He liked working with the material.

 

[DCL Knives]

I've worked with some, no real drawbacks that I can think of. It might not be as tough as g10 or micarta but I think it is plenty tuff for a knife handle.

 

[javand]

It's cool looking stuff, but considering it's just honeycomb core material filled with epoxy, I wouldn't think it would be nearly as strong as a woven composite layup like micarta, g10, carbon fiber, etc.. Of course, those materials are about 1000x more durable than necessary for knife handles, so it probably doesn't matter in the real world.


Anybody know if the honeycomb material is aluminum or stainless?

 

[KCGGBC]

Its Aluminum is memory serves.

The only issue I know of is that it softens quite a bit when heated.
But it will go back to flat pretty readily so its no big deal.

 

[ShepardCC]

It's 90 resin and resin is good for support strength between two things like a cartilage vertebrae disc but think of it reversed. Your spine is cartilage and the discs are now bone. Much easier to break. More brittle.

As far as looks go, I love ctek. Looks amazing. But I wouldn't recommend it on a hard use knife.

I've beaten g10 with a hammer trying to seperate a couple of pieces to no avail. I can snap ctek in half with my bare hands.

Here's some of my work

 

[S.Grosvenor]

You need to watch how the scales are applied to the tang because the aluminum hex frame isn't really centered in the epoxy. I have used it and won't be going forward.