Practical use/maintenance of G10 knives?

[Appletz]

I'm talking about knives made completely out of G10, not just the handles. These have intrigued me lately. How do they cut? How do you sharpen them? Who uses them?

I've heard of jobs that need non-magnetic equipment (EOD?), but do they have any use outside of that? They seem like they'd be nice if you need to dig, pry, and cut with a single small, light tool that won't break (I know I'm inviting "buy a shovel and prybar" tangents but that's OK). If you own one of these, I'm curious to hear what you use it for.

 

[SpookyDriver]

I have a few. I use them as letter openers and give them away for the same use.

 

[brets-ftw]

seems like a nice light weight alternative, I believe Charlie Mike made a few out of carbon fiber, Lansky had one out of Zytel, Coldsteel has one im sure, though I generally dont look into that side of their catalog all that often so it might be disco'd.

 

[neuron]

Even for applications that require non-magnetic, non-sparking, or corrosion-proof implements -- such as EOD and underwater work -- there are non-ferrous alloys that are going to be much more durable and stable than G-10 when used as edged tools. The main ones I know of are titanium and copper alloys (copper beryllium, in particular, is used for EOD tools because, in addition to being non-magnetic, it's non-sparking).

I guess it could be neat as a novelty or as a very lightweight knife for very light tasks, but I wouldn't trust a pure G-10 or carbon fiber knife for much more than the letter-opening someone mentioned above.

 

[CubistHamster]

I've heard of jobs that need non-magnetic equipment

I just finished 6 years as an Army EOD tech, and I never had any need of non-mag equipment, nor do I know anybody else who did. EOD units have a couple sets of Beryllium tools just for that, but the only time they ever got taken out was for quarterly inventories.

I did need non-conductive blades a couple of times, and always carried a cheap ceramic folder. G-10 sounds like it might be a more durable alternative.