Various handle materials and durability?

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Bungwrench

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How do the various handle materials hold up?

Bone Stag vs. Delrin vs. Wood (like Birds Eye Maple) vs. others

Do they all shrink or have any problems? It would seem like the wood handles would get messed up the easiest. True?
 
Not necessarily. I suspect (although I could easily be wrong) that these days the wood being used has been stabilized to prevent the drying and cracking that I would normally expect with untreated wood.

The synthetics like Delrin are pretty much impervious to the elements, solvents and such, and the older ones I have show no signs of shrinkage. The only drawback I see is they scratch easily, so they don't stay new-looking for very long.

Bone and bone stag (which is just bone jigged and dyed to look like stag) actually work remarkably well overall. The only problems I have ever had with bone handles were the occasional warp or crack, which may be from living where a relative humidity of 30% is called rain ;) .
 
Much as we don't like it, the synthetics have it all over the natural handle materials in hard use situations. That Buck 301 stockman I used for about 25 years, including years of army engineers duty, still had the Delrin handles in good shape. The knife was sent back to Buck several years ago to have the main blade replaced, but other than that it's good. If you're looking to a handle for hard use in all climates, delrin is great stuff, as is micarta.

BUT!

Don't sell the mother nature issue stuff short. The wood handles on a 1960's era Buck 110 and Gerber folding sportsman 2 are in good shape. Wood like cocobolo, ligna vita, rosewood, are exremly dense and durable. True some of them will darken with age, but so will saw cut bone like on the old barlows.

Keep in mind, that bone will last a long time. Digging up civil war graves for research turns up skelitons with the bones laying there for over a century and a half. With a little care natures materials will last for your life time, and after that, does it really matter?

Stag seems to be the best of the animal materails. Especially the India stag. A century of use just polishes the stag to a creamy smooth finish of dark honey gold. My grandads stag stockman is still in decent shape for carrying, and that stag is circa 1940's. His seamans clasp knife he bought in a ship chandlers shop in Sligo Ireland in the early 1920's, has stag handles, and so far they have no cracks or chips. But then I recall grandad used to rub a little oil into the stag stockman, so he may have taken a bit of care with his seamans knife as well. But 80 years is a good record for durability.

I think it all boils down in the end as to what you want. Maintance free unconditional service synthetics, or natural beauty that ages with us but may need a little loving care now and then with a bit of mineral oil rubbed in.

At this point in life I like a knife that has aged along with me. Maybe its the peace I've made with the knowledge of a finite life span myself, so I don't mind if my gear looks a bit as aged as its silver haired owner. It all comes down alot to you philosphy on life. Patina is good. It better be, I'm patined as heck.
 
Well said, jackknife.

The older I get the more I seem to return to the knives I remember as a kid and that my grandfather introduced me to, especially now that I've retired from law enforcement and don't feel the need for a "tactical" knife as my daily carry.

I appreciate the virtues of both natural and synthetic handle scales and find it's easy enough to own both to have something appropriate for the occasion..
 
This is some good information. As usual, jackknife has said it best. I admire your writing skills jackknife. I always love reading what you have to say.
 
Oh, forgot to add- ligna vita is so hard, it was used as ships engine berings way back when. Like rosewood, it has a very high natural oil content, and this let it have longevity under preasure in damp conditions.
 
In the woods I like Bois D'Arc (Osage Orange) and Ironwood a lot as well.
 
I've got a long bow out of the Osage, and it started life as a nice yellow. Over the years its darkened to almost a black coffee color. Not that I mind, but I liked the original yellow/orange. Apparently its the sunlight that darkens the wood. Some of my other friends that are into traditional archery have had the same thing happen with any bows that have osage in them.
 
Seems to happen with several excellent woods.
 
Lignum vitae bearings used on ships were for the tailshaft bearings where the shaft actually passed through the hull. They were water lubricated. They haven't been commonly used for the past 30 years or so.

Jim
 
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