What's the verdict on vulcanized liner materials?

[jonnymac44]

Question from a noob: I know it's somewhat dependent on the proportions of the scales, but what thickness G10 are you using for liners? Somewhere in the .020 - .030" range?

I'm with Andy on this. Do whatever feels right for the knife. I've used G-10 liner material that was as thin as .020" and as thick as .140" and lots of sizes in between. I think right around .036-.038" seems to be what would be considered the "norm" for liner thickness.

 

[Fiddleback]

I even bought some 0.007" thick orange. I use it on either side of other liner material if there isn't enough contrast there naturally. Makes a beautiful pinstripe kinda effect.

 

[koyote]

There are ways to make the vulcanized material work out.

a few tricks I use- glue the liners to the scales first, with one of the no line adhesives. a slow cure CA or gorilla glue work out well- or one of the loctite 300 series. THEN cut to shape and sand a bit with a very crisp belt and slow speed. once everything is FLAT for the glue up to the knife, glue up.

At this point I generally (since I do more forming after glue up) grind some shape into my scales and blend the tang in with 60 and 120 grit belts. then I do a lengthwise run with 220 grit by hand. This tend to get all the issues taken care of in rounding the handle and cleaning up the spacer material- which isn't going to "bleed" much as it's one piece with the scales before you glue up the knife. THEN I run some super think CA along the spacer areas and let it soak in and dry. back to the belt for slow 320-400 work and finish by hand (usually to 600, but whatever floats your boat)

One last thing I do is apply a curing oil. Linseed requires the most soaking and time, or tru oil, or whatever. I even do this on my micarta handles.

For whatever reason in the above processes, I have as yet (know on wood) had very little trouble from the vulcanized material.

 

[james terrio]

I don't doubt you, Christof, since I haven't tried any of your techniques other than sealing the finished edges with CA (didn't help a bit in my experience). And I'll refrain from trying all that because it's a whole lot of extra work just to use a material that's inherently unstable in the first place. Maybe it's just me... I don't use ebony either, for much the same reasons.

Nothing personal to anyone but I don't understand why folks will cling to something that causes more problems than it solves, and work their butts off to force it to work for them, when there's much better alternatives...

EDIT: BTW, Christof makes gorgeous knives and this post has nothing to do with that! I respect his work very much.