Natural materials

M

Michael Bennett

Joined
Mar 2, 1999
Messages
666
Who here uses natural handle materials, ie horn, bone, mother of pearl, wood?

I have some micarta. I love the way it looks, but hate working it. I was (am) under the impression that the higher-end items usually use natural materials, but most, stock items today use micarta, G10 and other favorites du jour?

What are your thoughts?

Mike
 
Naturals are more difficult to work with and are not EXACTLY the same every time (the public seems to expect that every knife in a factory run will look the same).

Naturals are inherently less stable than plastic and require more care.

Naturals are usually much more expensive.

Naturals are much more attractive than plastics if you can live with the variation and extra care required.

The conclusion is if you are making for a mass market, use plastic...If you are making for a more discerning market use naturals.
 
Who's the knife for and how are they going to use it? I will almost always choose natural materials because that's my preference. Yeah, it can be more difficult and expensive but that's my idea of a good finished knife. Natural materials just seem to compliment the overall 'package' and besides, most of the time it just looks better.

It's hard to beat a knife and sheath combo with a nice hunk of antler and quality leather. There are things that can be done to help these natural materials stay in good shape for longer than normal. And those are natural ingredients too of course. I use cutler's resin to seal all of my natural material handles. It's a mixture of pine pitch, carnauba wax and beeswax. I even use it as a sealant/epoxy on my full tang handles. And I've done some experimenting with using thin leather spacers or liners between the handle slabs and the tang. I'll soak the leather in hot cutler's resin and while it's still hot and pliable lay it on the tang and slap the handle slabs on and pin it and clamp it in a vise until it's cool. Then pein the pins. And usually I'll dip the entire handle in the hot resin and ladle it on until it soaks into every nook and cranny and then wipe it off quickly and dip it in water to set the resin. By the way, the resin adds to the finish of the handle material too. Shines right up! The natural color of the resin gives bone, antler, ivory and wood a very natural tone. It looks great and is completely waterproof.

For leather finishing I use a homemade 'mink oil' type mixture. It's equal parts of beeswax and neatsfoot oil melted together and then cooled. The resulting paste is just right for applying evenly to leather and then heating gently with a heat gun or hair dryer till it all absorbs. While the leather is still warm just massage the leather in your hands until the entire surface is smooth and covered in the oil/beeswax with no dry spots. Follow up with more paste on a rag and just buff it into the leather and wipe it off with a clean dry cloth. It's the best leather treatment I've found and very inexpensive as well. I melt it up in a 1 lb. coffee can and store it in that same can with the plastic lid on.

Of course I like some of the synthetic materials too. I have lots of natrual canvas micarta. That's my material of choice for a hard use knife that will be exposed to the elements and lots of punishment. They look good and will most likely outlast any of the natural materials. So I guess the long and the short of it is the who and how of it. It all depends on those two things for me. I guess I'm pretty fortunate with my custom orders. Most of the time my customers just tell me basically what they want and let me go from there and make myself happy. It always seems to work out.
 
From a buyers perspective I prefer the naturals on aesthetics and often on function. I just ordered a new pocket knife and it will have burled scales. But when it comes to beat to death, throw it in the tackle box, keep it in the car, go anywhere knives, I usually end up getting micarta. And there are many custom knives with micarta or g10 scales that cost far more than similar naturals.
 
I prefer to use natural materials for handles,but for real life hard use,and for my own,I would use Micarta.On sheaths I use bark tanned leather,heat it to 180-200deg.,then dip it in Lexol-NF,it replaces the natural oils without being greasy,finish with Kiwi Shoe wax.
 
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