Scales for a small trapper, any suggestions for materials?

Matt Shade

Matt Shade

Joined
Nov 24, 1999
Messages
4,981
I'm putting together a trapper knife kit for my uncle for christmas and can't decide what to use for a handle. I haven't had much luck with wood on knives that are carried inside a pocket with keys,change and other stuff like that.I like micata and G10, but think the knife should get something other than plain black scales.Any ideas? I'm more concerned with it being sopmething that will last a long time, but it would be nice if it was something that looked good too. The knife will be 3 1/2" long closed and has double nickle silver bolsters and brass liners.What would you use?
 
A couple things that come immediately to mind are quite traditional: celluloid, a number of patterns of which are available from knifemaker's supply outfits like TKS , and micarta comes in many variations, virtually any of which should be cool. I've seen some butterscotch colored, and an aged ivory color too.

Good luck, and I hope you post your results!

Dave
 
Jigged bone comes in a variety of colors and is pretty durable. Not expensive either.
 
I like all the ideas above. Ivory and Gold Lip MOP are my favorites. But have you thought about stabilized woods. The act much like plastic as far as wear goes. That way you could have a great look with burled wood and not worry about the keys or what not beating them up.
 
Thanks for the replies guys.
I'll have to check into all of your ideas. I don't know if I'm up to working on mastodon ivory or anything that expensive yet. My tools aren't variable speed, I think I'd burn everything up...yeah thats it its all my bandsaws fault ;)
I hadn't really thought about all the different colors of micarta,and the only stabilized wood I've seen first hand was diamond wood :barf:. I think what I need to do is go to Koval and pick the stuff up if I can get a day off this week.
Let me know if you come up with anything different too.I'm going to try filework and all the tricks on this one as long as it doesn't get too expensive.
Thanks
 
Although you can get Micarta and G-10 in different colors, I'd suggest using jigged bone. It's not all that expensive, and there are a lot of variations of both colors and jig patterns available. :)

One word of caution - DON'T use high-speed power tools if you choose to work with celluloid. The stuff catches on fire! :eek:
 
Its truly terrible that stag is essentially not available. But, I've seen bone "jigged" or whatever to resemble stag, and some looks great. I know that Case has gotten quite creative in the ways in which they're using bone now. I just got SKKW's catalogue, or whatever, that was all Zippo lighters and Case knives. A chance to look at a variety of types/styles of bone. Sadly, only one carbon steel series in the whole bunch.

I agree with Ron that the stabilized woods can offer you something different than plain wood would. (Sorry about that) Some of them are nothing short of gorgeous.

Good luck.
 
I've done one of those trappers and I used white tail deer antler. These racks have been laying out in the elements for a couple of years and really have character when used for slabs. You can jig them or as I did using a series of cross cuts for grips. The one I built for my son has been in use the last year and no shrinkage from dem bones yet!. I glued mine in with J&B, and finished them out with Simonich (?) paste. Really brought out the character in them.--Dan
 
Thanks everybody.
I've got a whole list of things I want to try now. I'm going to go with white natural bone or black jig bone for this. I've a got a few other projects in the works, so I'll use it all one way or another.
Stag would be great but it seems like its in short supply and high demand :( I saw some imitation stag jig bone that looked neat, but I think the pattern was to big to work well for a knife this size.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top