what good are "premium" scales?

[senoBDEC]

spyderco delica is a FRN frame knife.

if FRN is so much better than G10 as far as grip/durability why is it no custom knifemaker offers FRN as a handle material??

because G10 is better.

There's a variety of reasons - why do many custom knifemakers prefer NOT to use G-10 - asthma and other medical issues? Expense or unavailability? Easier to carve and modify compared to FRN (which is often molded from what I understand) thus making much less easy to customize. Plus, custom-made micarta is so much nicer

Although, I will agree, G-10 is an excellent material, and works pretty well, but it does tend to chip when fallling on concrete, rough material, at an angle, etc... FRN really doesn't compare all that well.

 

[Artfully Martial]

And by the way, G10 knives have liners/frames too. G10 is never the frame of the knife. FRN usually is. So you are compring pure FRN to a combination G10 with a metal frame and wondering at the difference in performance.

Sorry guys, that was the source of my confusion. I thought he meant that some G10 knives had FRN frames, which...makes no sense to me. But that's because he didn't mean it that way. Simple misunderstanding.

 

[dalefuller]

My first criteria for any knife that I buy is that it be a real "user", not a drawer queen or a fashion model, so I really like FRN or G-10 scales. Over the years 50+ of them, so far) that I've bought and carried knives, metal, wood, and rubber have all failed me at one point or another, even if they carry a good brand name. FRN never has through forest, field, warehouse, and beach sand.

Apparently, they're fairly easy to work into the necessary shape and thickness, and I can attest to how tough FRN is after having dropped my work EDC more than once onto a concrete warehouse floor. I've even run a grinder onto the edge of an FRN knife handle when I was buffing the edge of a clip that I was too lazy to remove. I have a slight indentation in the FRN at that point, but nothing even noticable unless you know where to look.

I find that SS is too slippery when my hands are wet or cold and I've heard the same things about titanium; once aluminium dings (think "oops, I dropped it..."), it's there for life; and the wooden scales that I've had on knife handles are rather fragile under stressful use. I do have a FB with green canvas micarta that may be as tough as my FRN or G-10 knives, but I've only had it a short time, so I can't say.

I consider G-10 an upgrade to a knife because it seems to me to have all the qualities of FRN while providing a bit more rigidity and weight to the knife, both of which I like. Some of the abuse that I occasionally dish out to my knives includes hammering a point through certain materials, using the knife to apply a twisting force to something, sliding a thin blade under something that I want to cut and then twisting the handle to stretch the material enough to allow the edge to cut through it, and sometimes even cutting something in a direction away from my body with the actual edge of the blade held vertically ina safe grip.

Sorry this is so wordy, but it seemed that a statement of experience rather than preference was wanted here.

 

[tirod3]

As for G10 framed knives, the current style of locks seem to inhibit their manufacture, IMHO. Liner locks, frame locks, etc all need a long slip of metal to perform their function or add wear resistance to the locking point. But surely someone is making a G10 handled lock back. It would need no liners because G10 is structurally stiffer than FRN.

By the way, nylon does cold flow, read the engineering specs - it's a definite flaw for some automotive uses because it will not retain it's shape under continous pressure. The Endura took two weeks to lose it's grip on the blade.

As for G10 not being a good frame material, it seems to do OK on my SnG, at least in holding up it's end of the blade pivot. The all-FRN Gerber LST has no problems either, because it was engineered for that size blade. Admittedly FRN doesn't chip as easily, but that's the exact quality you get - plasticity.

Great for injection molding, not for me.

 

[Artfully Martial]

Well, isn't the dodo a linerless G10 model? It has a back spacer to enclose the lock, but otherwise...

The Military only has the nested partial liner on one side for the lock too.

It seems like there are a few locks that would make linerless G10 knives fairly easy to make.

 

[knarfeng]

spyderco delica is a FRN frame knife.

if FRN is so much better than G10 as far as grip/durability why is it no custom knifemaker offers FRN as a handle material??

because G10 is better.

Custom knife makers would find FRN to be an expensive material. They don't require the number of handles needed to make FRN inexpensive. With FRN, you need dies/molds. Those are expensive. You need to make a lot of handles to pay off that initial cost. G10 is easier to work with. You buy a flat laminate and cut it to size. So in small volume quantities, G10 should be less expensive than FRN. And G10 is good stuff.

I don't think FRN is better than G10. I just find FRN to be a viable handle material, which a lot of folks apparently don't.

 

[knarfeng]

It would be interesting if someone could educate us on the different types of G-10.

Here is some background on G10 and sources of variability of the material.

G10 is a designation for epoxy impregnated glass fabric. The term “G10” comes from a NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) specification, specification L1, “Industrial Laminated Thermosetting Products”. There is no Qualified Producers List for L1, it is a performance specification. Anyone can make G10, but, in order to be called G10, it has to have a specific set of properties. The good part of this is that anything called G10 has to have certain minimum properties. The less good part is that the properties that most interest knife people are either not controlled by the specification or only partly controlled.

I do not have access to NEMA specifications. The charge to buy specification L1 is $190. Too much for me. But the military buys its G10 laminates to its own spec, MIL-I-24768/2. That, I have access to. The properties controlled by the MIL spec are going to be pretty similar to those controlled by the NEMA spec. It’s the same material and it’s going to be used for the same purpose, circuit boards. Here are the properties of G10 flat laminates per MIL-I-2478/2:
Dielectric breakdown voltage
Dielectric constant
Dissipation factor
Impact strength
Flex strength
Water absorption.

As you can see, most of these are electrical parameters. But there are a couple that would interest us. Impact strength of a 1/8” thick section is to be at least 7 ft-lb per inch. Flex strength of a 1/8” thick section is to be a minimum of 55 KSI measured with the fabric. But these two properties are the only ones that define the material for what knife people want it for. And two properties are insufficient to really tie down the performance.

Here is a link to a quick post I made about how G10 is processed: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4132125&postcount=5
There are a number of places that performance variation can creep in to G10.
You start with fabric, with any number of weaves available, any number of fiber diameters, none of them controlled by the G10 spec. One company weaves the fabric. Another company buys the fabric, and impregnates the fabric with an epoxy resin and turns it into “prepreg”. There are thousands of resin combinations from which to choose. Selection is not controlled by the G10 spec. That company sells its “prepreg” to a processor who makes the laminates. The processed laminates are what is sold as G10. It is only the two-variable performance of that finished laminate that is controlled. Specifications that control structural laminates usually control more properties.

And the surface finish, which interests us the most, is not controlled by the G10 spec at all. Check out the surface finish of a circuit board some time. It’s pretty slippery. So the knife maker who wants G10 for his handles has to order special stuff. It’s still made from the same prepreg that makes circuit board G10, so it’s going to have G10 strength properties, such as they are. But, he is going to go to that processor and arrange to buy some special G10 laminate that has a special rough finish to it.

What he ends up with is going to depend on what he asks for, who processes it and how it was done, what epoxy was used, what weave was chosen. And it is all called G10 because it meets the NEMA spec for circuit boards.

Hope this is helpful.
Knarfeng

 

[SIFU1A]

FRN works just fine for its intended purpose but its not pretty, and imho has no advantages over G10 other than its cheaper.