Opinions on Glow-in-the-Dark Knives?

A neat fad.

Ohh, where is my knife - I better charge the GITD in order to find it.

Just kidding - GITD is okay, I guess.

Tritium for serious work.

As an aside, I dont really find neither very useful.

I had a tritium Marathon watch. Ordinary lume is more than enough for say a watch. I didnt care much for the bright permanent glow of the trit truth be told.
Sometimes you just dont want to advertise a watch and the lume of the Marathons is plenty good to last a full night - with or without charging.

Why mention watches? Well, I dont currently have a GITD knife nor a trit inlaid one and have no desire to for the above mentioned reasons (I see no reason to advertise a knife).

When using a knife in low light conditions/at night I tend to either have my knife in my hand or in the sheath. I usually dont put them on the ground.

Other knives are just too dang big to misplace!:D




But to each his own; Im sure others have a different approach and find GITS/trit useful on knives and thats fine. In a dark room or the forrest floor at night, it no doubt work fine for others.
 
I once spent $25 on a tritium button for a Protech Runt. That was almost 10 years ago, and the glow power has diminished quite a bit, to the point that unless your eyes are adjusted to the dark, it's pretty hard to see.

Cool? Yup! worth the extra $? Nope. Now, I did have a larger tritium vial on my keychain for quite a while, and it was very handy to find your keys. My boys lost it, though.
 
You bring up a good point. If I have GITD handles (not tritium), I wonder how long the glowing ability would last?

If after a few years, they stop glowing, then I would rather not buy a GITD knife.
 
Raining said:
You bring up a good point. If I have GITD handles (not tritium), I wonder how long the glowing ability would last?

If after a few years, they stop glowing, then I would rather not buy a GITD knife.
Click to expand...

I thought I'd let all discuss it a bit before commenting....

First the Glow last from 10-20Years.

Now as far as being a fad or gimmick? I hope not as this is what I do for a living:) The first basic benefit is that they are just plain fun. As far as real uses I have heard many testimonials from customers. Below are a few off the top of my head.
1)It's great to charge up your gun/Knife before heading to bed. If you get woken up abruptly (zombies)you will have no trouble finding it.
2)If you find your deer after sunset then you can lay your knife down intermittently while skinning it.
3)If you go hiking and happen to loose a knife from it's sheath or your pocket...then you can go back at night and most likely find it as the sun would have charged it plenty.
4)It's great for a fireman to have in a dark building....
5) Some like it for diving knives.
6)It can be used as a signal of sorts. I had a fellow who is deaf tell me that he and his girlfriend are using them to sign when camping.
NON KNIFE
7) Does well on the dog collars I've made. It can be seen glowing from a good distance and it does not require a flashlight to reflect...
8) The glow Knocks for bow hunting I've made are pretty usable in areas where electronics are not allowed.
9)Small inserts are good for fishing...trust me:)

Anyway, I see how some might think it's just a fad or a gimmick but I see them as useful. I also see them as artistic impressions that are customizable to the individual. Some want black scales with just a locator dot. Some want a thin blue glow line with black as they are police officers. Others want white glow with black spots to match the family dog. I guess in the end it's a way to embellish a knife with something a little different and personal.
 
Thanks for chiming in Kryptoglow. :)
Points 1 and 3 seem very plausible.

A friend of mine had a flashlight that had a ring of GITD around the bezel and it actually proved quite useful.
... and it was cool. ;)
 
Not a fad IMHO. It simply works. Thats why they now make reflective 550 cord & tent guyline. So things can be found &/or seen easily at night. I LOVE the GITD handles for knives. Not if you dont want to be seen though. :D
 
Bladescout " I had a tritium Marathon watch. Ordinary lume is more than enough for say a watch. I didnt care much for the bright permanent glow of the trit truth be told. Sometimes you just dont want to advertise a watch and the lume of the Marathons is plenty good to last a full night -with or without charging."

Tritium doesn't need charging. It is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that emits light constantly. It has a half life of about 12 years which means half of it will decay and probably be about half as bright. In another 12 years another half will decay so there will be a quarter of what there was originally after 24 years. Not something to last a lifetime. I forget the type of radiation it emits but it is very weak and a sheet of paper, or the glass vial it is in, will stop it so you won't end up with a tumor on your wrist from your watch.
 
If I recall correctly, Tritium emits beta particles which can't even penetrate your skin. Even without the vial, the stuff is harmless. It occurs naturally and you're constantly exposed to it to begin with. The stuff is literally in the air you breath.
 
FlaMtnBkr said:
Bladescout " I had a tritium Marathon watch. Ordinary lume is more than enough for say a watch. I didnt care much for the bright permanent glow of the trit truth be told. Sometimes you just dont want to advertise a watch and the lume of the Marathons is plenty good to last a full night -with or without charging."

Tritium doesn't need charging. It is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that emits light constantly. It has a half life of about 12 years which means half of it will decay and probably be about half as bright. In another 12 years another half will decay so there will be a quarter of what there was originally after 24 years. Not something to last a lifetime. I forget the type of radiation it emits but it is very weak and a sheet of paper, or the glass vial it is in, will stop it so you won't end up with a tumor on your wrist from your watch.
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I can see, how my post was misunderstood, thought I did mention 'the permanent glow' of the trit.
How ever let me elaborate, as I was clearly in a hurry when writing and managed to mess it up:
Im well aware, that you dont charge trit.
What I meant to say, was that I dont care for the permanent glow of trit in a Watch (or knife) at night.
Especially not, when the fantastic ordinary lume in a Marathon is more than adequate to check time all night long - even if you charge the normal lume or not. The lume material is called 'Superluminova' and is not tritium but 'ordinary' lume material.
My old Marathon SAR have excellent 'normal' Superluminova lume material on the hands and can easily be read all night long even if I dont charge the lume with a flashlight.
I have had the Marathon TSAR (trit SAR Watch) and didnt care for the trit lume.
I also had the CSAR (trit), the TSAR (trit), the JSAR (Superluminova) and the original SAR (Superluminova). Ive kept the SAR and the JSAR.

You can check out the difference between the different models here:
http://www.broadarrow.net/sale.htm
 
JSMcustoms said:
If I recall correctly, Tritium emits beta particles which can't even penetrate your skin. Even without the vial, the stuff is harmless. It occurs naturally and you're constantly exposed to it to begin with. The stuff is literally in the air you breath.
Click to expand...
Personally, I never had any problems with the trit items, Ive had and I certainly dont worry about breaking trit vials in watches.
I think the concept viable and great for some items - personally I just dont need it in a knife or a watch, but that is because I dont want to advertise the prescence of either at night if in full view. I know where both a knife and a watch is most of the time after all ;-)
 
Nullity said:
Thanks for chiming in Kryptoglow. :)
Points 1 and 3 seem very plausible.

A friend of mine had a flashlight that had a ring of GITD around the bezel and it actually proved quite useful.
... and it was cool. ;)
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Oh yeah, I also do the glow rings for flashlights and most likely made your buddies. So far I just have them for the Fenix's and the mag-lites. Once I figure out the lens dimensions of other brands I hope to start offering them also.
 
i would find it extremely useful in a hunting knife. i learned a few years ago that having a camo handled hunting knife was an awful idea after i set one down and it took me 20 minutes to find it again. from then on i switched to blaze orange handled knives. when dressing a deer in the dark, GLID would be even better.
 
I'm torn because I like the idea and cool factor of GITD knives, but I don't like the idea of the glow fading over time, since I want to pass my knives to my sons someday.
 
Raining said:
I'm torn because I like the idea and cool factor of GITD knives, but I don't like the idea of the glow fading over time, since I want to pass my knives to my sons someday.
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I said 10-20 tears was the glow time for my stuff but actually it is expected to glow for 30-40+yrs. I just like to exceed expectations:)
 
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