I am a big fan of Mr Starks work, and if he is having no issues that makes me feel good--but I must admit, I'm currently in the school with JT--I have a friend that got a splinter from a carbon fiber arrow, and nearly had his hand amputated because of it---uggggggh!!!
You brought up an important topic, and I think the issue here is
"Carbon Fiber" are actually many entirely different materials. And people don't know that because of all of them are under the same marketing term, carbon fiber.
The ones they use to make arrows, or fishing poles (sometimes known as graphite as a marketing term), are
"pultruded carbon fiber", where fibers are pulled in one direction and they form a continuous rod or a tube based on the mold. This material can cause splinters because the fibers are all in the same direction. You do not see pultruded carbon fiber in knife making with the exception of CF rods used as pins.
The carbon fiber boards used in crafts, and knife scales, are
Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer Laminates. They are made of thin layers of woven carbon fiber then mixed with resin. The laminates are created in a way that fibers are in all different directions: 0, 45, 90, 135, etc.
This material will not cause any splinter because there is not enough fiber in the same direction. Think of this as another version of woven glass fiber board (such as g10) or cloth/canvas fiber board (micarta). None of these material will cause splinters.
I looked into CarbonLite. Judging from the photos it is hard to determine which type of carbon fiber material they are using. But if the tool can cause splinters it is probably not a modern CFRP laminate material. They probably have other reasons to pick the material used. But I don't think that is comparable to what we are using for knife scales.
Another important thing to point out is Carbon Fiber boards are lighter than metal, but should not be
that light.
Solid carbon fiber boards have a density around 120 pound per cubic foot, they are heavier than most natural wood, probably comparable to stabilized wood. If a carbon fiber product is unusually light, it's probably only has carbon fiber cloth on the surface.
The inside can be hollow, or hardboard paper, or honeycoab aluminum, or others. I don't have faith in a lot of carbon fiber products in the market. People call it carbon fiber because of the color and the look. Who knows what is really inside. Unless you can cut into the material, you really do not know what it is.
