Thick liners: Good or bad?

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
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I get the feeling from responses in the forums that thick liners are generally favoured by knife knuts.

The general notion is that the thicker the liner, the stronger the blade, in other words, better grip or something like that.

I often wonder if this is true. Strider knives, for example, have thick liners. Some other names too swear by that kind of thickness.

Is that a scientific basis for such a belief?
 
I can't say I have any science behind it but, in general if something is thicker it will tend to be stronger. That being said, the knife could be made of very thick material, but if design and engineering aren't done properly and construction isn;t executed properly, the knife will not be strong. It won't matter how thick it is.

Personally, I prefer thicker liners on my folders. Not on;y is it stronger, it make the handle more rigid and the knife feel more solid when in use.
 
I usually at least like it to have liners when I buy it. And, I do prefer thicker ones. If it doesn't even have any real effect, it at least makes the knife *feel* sturdier to me.

As Dirk said, the design and engineering being proper, it should be stronger with thicker liners (paraphrase).
 
I think it is more like the thicker the liner, the thicker the liner lock would be too and the less likely to fail. Apart from that, I do suppose that the thicker the handle slab and/or liner, the knife would be more resistant to bending and twisting, not in the sense of twisting in your hand but the entire knife getting bent or twisted.
 
There is absolutely a large number of folks here on these forums who prefer thick liners.

There is no question in my mind that thicker liners make sturdier, less flexible frame structures. They also tend to result in thicker handles and increased knife weight.

It all comes down to individual preferences. What's important to YOU?

My Benchmade 806D2 has a much sturdier frame than my Military, but the 806D2 is heavier, wider and feels like a brick in-pocket and in-hand compared to the Military. The 806D2 has not only a stronger frame, but also a stronger lock. But the 806D2 sits on my desk, and the Military is always clipped in my pocket.

The best compromise of weight, strength, handle-width and lock-strength is probably represented by the Sebenza - which I continue to resist due to the $300 price tag.
 
only concerns me with linerlocks, and I prefer axis, lockback, and framelock anyway :)
 
thick liners are superstition. don't need thick ones...don't need any liner.

there are plenty of linerless zytel knives that take a lickin and keep tickin. spyderco makes the milatary and starmate, hard use knives with only a small nested linerlock, strengh comes from the g-10. the liner on the g-10 harpy is mainly to screw in the clip and is on only one side.
 
I would prefer thick liner of two main reasons:

1. Thicker means less risk of bending.
2. Thicker means, if it moves over, there is enough liner left that it will not stuck between blade and second liner or scale.

Another point might be:

Looking at some SnGs the liner, i saw on pics, weren´t engaging fully. They just move in half the way and the other half stays on unengaged.

I guess this is because Strider needs one half of the liner as the grip and the second half for the lock.

In general i think, that the locking liner should have half the thickness of the blade and should engage fully, optimum is, the liner and the blade buil a line on the outside, so all the strength is in the line, what reduces the possibilty to bend.

Like said before, not pure thickness is important.
 
I would prefer no liners, or thin ones, to save on weight. I also don't really believe I could ever break the handles on a linerless FRN knife anyway, so if it's strong enough why bother.
-Kevin
 
brownshoe said:
thick liners are superstition. don't need thick ones...don't need any liner.

there are plenty of linerless zytel knives that take a lickin and keep tickin. spyderco makes the milatary and starmate, hard use knives with only a small nested linerlock, strengh comes from the g-10. the liner on the g-10 harpy is mainly to screw in the clip and is on only one side.
Click to expand...

i had one on the earlier spyderco bob-t's and it had a single liner. i was cutting thru something and applying a little preasure and the stop pin broke through the g10. because of this i dont buy knives that dont have dual liners. and the linerless zytel knives are lockbacks and thats where they get there strength from.
nos the spyderco could of been a fluke and more than likely it was a flaw in the g10, but if it happends once it could happen again.
i really like the military, i think its a great design, and i have a cop buddy that used the hell out of it, but i cant get past the single liner part.
 
I would like to see some knives with half or 1/3 length liners. The high stress areas are up at the blade pivot end of the handle. I like saving weight, but I would like to have some insurance around the pivot. It might even be ok to put some perforations in the liner once you get a half-inch from the pivot.
 
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