and End of the Day colors. Brilliant, vintage celluloid handle materials that are ignored as we drown in a deluge of toxic green and dayglo orange resin based (I think anyway) MODERN replacements. Nothing wrong with those but the seem out of place on the older slipjoints I have an affection for salvaging.
So my question is: where can similar, if not congruent, materials be had? Not celluloid but something that is as pretty.
Any leads would be appreciated
Warm regards,
Corey "synthesist" Gimbel
IMO, much of this is only "acceptable" to us, because it's old, and not that accessible anymore. Consider that most of this, was the equivalent of the stuff you describe not liking, of the era. Fine/higher end pieces still had stag, ivory, etc. on them. Now, because of exclusivity, vintage phenolics and plastics now have renewed value and respect because of the rarity of obtaining them, but they were "junk" back when they were new. If they were still super common place, I doubt we'd have the respect and interest we do for them.
IMO, as a slipjoint maker, I'm not interested in modern acrylic resin materials, because they're not that exclusive, and my experience with the ones I've seen, is they they're very brittle. I also have my doubts about how long they'll last before some deterioration from light/time/oxidation happens. Celluloid was amazingly durable, beyond expectations I'd wager if you look at how much of it is still in decent shape, but it had it's caveats for care like everything else. Still, I won't be using any modern equivalent of it.
The smart modern materials to use if cost is a factor, are domestically produced micarta/g10's and their equivalents, or other composites. Hell there's tons of vintage corian, melamine, etc, that all would make very good handle material, that hasn't gained favor, simply because nobody has popularized it yet.
If you're looking for something cool, checkout M3 composite. I'm surprised I haven't seen more of this stuff in use, it's pretty interesting, and may scratch the itch you're having. They have some information/branding issues that I think are confusing to most people, but it's a pretty cool material regardless.
