It's my understanding that knives with skeletonized handles (Becker Necker, Eskabar, Izula, etc.) are generally designed to reduce weight and give a slimmer profile that would make it easier to conceal, pack, etc. But many people love adding scales to them which certainly makes the knives more comfortable to use but seems to defeat the purpose of the skeletonized handles. Adding micarta scales to the examples I listed seems to turn them into small fixed blade hunters, adding weight and increasing the profile. Am I missing something here? I'm not being critical, just wanting to make sure I understand the concept.
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Question about skeletonized handles
- Thread starter TX Archer
- Start date
TX Archer:
Skeletonized handles are easier to conceal, especially in a neck knife. They are flatter and lighter as you point out. I agree that putting grips on them seems to defeat the purpose. People do it for a warm and secure grip, something lacking in skeletonized knives. There's a way to get around this and few do it. Dip the grip in 8 coats of Plasti-Dip or spray it with truck bed coating. Either way will only slightly increase grip width but will insulate and vastly improve the grip!
Joe
Skeletonized handles are easier to conceal, especially in a neck knife. They are flatter and lighter as you point out. I agree that putting grips on them seems to defeat the purpose. People do it for a warm and secure grip, something lacking in skeletonized knives. There's a way to get around this and few do it. Dip the grip in 8 coats of Plasti-Dip or spray it with truck bed coating. Either way will only slightly increase grip width but will insulate and vastly improve the grip!
Joe
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2010
- Messages
- 2,460
It gives those people who want to wrap their handle with paracord the opportunity to do that, those who want a little knife with micarta handles do that, and those people who want a really thin, light knife have that. everybody gets what they want.
I don't really agree that it defeats the purpose. Many production knives with scales have skeletonized liners... weight reduction is weight reduction whether it's covered or not.
Metal is denser than G10, wood, or some composites, so as long as the scales aren't too thick, a solid set of liners would make up a big chunk of the weight. Skeletonizing the liners, even if they're covered (or if uncovered, where they become the "scales") is still perfectly useful.
Metal is denser than G10, wood, or some composites, so as long as the scales aren't too thick, a solid set of liners would make up a big chunk of the weight. Skeletonizing the liners, even if they're covered (or if uncovered, where they become the "scales") is still perfectly useful.
kreole
Gold Member
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- Jul 23, 2009
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I wouldn't say the purpose of scales on skeletonized knives is to fill in the hole(s) to make it comfortable. The purpose is to add width to the handle, which is what makes it comfortable, and also to have the handle be material that is less slick than bare metal. Whether or not a knife is skeletonized doesn't change the handle width nor how well it grips when it doesn't have handles.
Thanks. That's pretty much what I thought but I wondered if there was something deeper that I was missing.
Sorry if I used the term wrong, fellas. But I wasn't talking about skeletonized liners. If you take a look at the examples I listed, you'll see what I was referring to.