Leather liner for knife scales?

[LukeR]

I'm currently working on a bushcraft knife (still in the never-ending purgatory of hand sanding currently), but I've been thinking ahead about the handle material. I have a block of unstabilised curly birch which I'm hoping to use, and since this is a knife that's likely to see some heavy use I thought it might be worthwhile adding a liner to absorb shock. I have a piece of thin (0.5-1mm) leather from an old wallet which I think would contrast really nicely.

I know that leather is often used in stacked handles, but I can't find any info about its use as a liner. Does anyone have any experience? I imagine it would absorb oil well enough to prevent moisture ingress. On the other hand, I can see that if I'm wrong then the leather might swell enough to cause the very thing I'm trying to avoid.

 

[Dogoak]

Stabilised leather is the way to go, as you've guessed you'd have trouble otherwise. Perhaps you could DIY your own with some epoxy? You'd have to re-apply to any sanded /exposed edges in the finishing.

 

[Dave Budd]

Assuming that you plan to glue the leather to the tang, then that is the moisture barrier.

Steel, then glue, leather, glue, wood is the normal order from tang outwards. In use, the leather would absorb moisture and would swell (giving a ridge above the tang/scale or potentially rot from between the layers.

I've used leather as a liner material without trouble. I soaked the leather with thin super glue to make it solid and imperviouse to moisture. If i remember rightly (its been a decade or so!), i assembled, shaped and half sanded the handle and then soaked the edges of the leather with the superglue. I think i did it because the tang was uneven in thickness and the squidgy leather filked the gaps.

 

[LukeR]

I'm almost done with the hand sanding after many, many hours yesterday, so I might have a crack at this today. Superglue seems like a good shout for soaking into the leather. Would it be reasonable to use superglue to bond the leather to the scales prior to the final glue-up? I imagine superglue would get much better penetration than epoxy. I know this is often done for synthetic liners so I might try with a test piece this morning. Ideally I'd like to get a good finish on the front part of the handle before gluing and I think this would be easier with the leather already in place.

 

[C_Claycomb]

If you want to use it for looks, or just to see how it works, have at it. Dave's suggestion about cyanoacrylate glue is a good one.

Oiling the leather before gluing up is a bad idea...good glue joints invariably depend on surfaces being free of oils. I don't think including the leather, 1mm thick, soaked in cyano, to absorb shock loading transferring to the birch handle stands up to scrutiny.

• Wood, all by itself, is widely used for chopping tool handles without use or need of shock absorbers in everything from factory mass production to traditional tribal blades.
• The ability to attenuate shock/vibration is related to thickness and the structure/hardness. 1mm is too thin to do all that much, and once soaked in enough cyano glue to exclude moisture you will have a composite plastic that isn't going to be noticeably different from the wood next to it. Birch is pretty soft and doesn't transmit vibration as it is. If you were using ebony, or similar hard or harder material there would be more difference.
• Sounds like a full tang knife. So vibration and shock from chopping will reach your hand through the exposed tang, even if you have rubber liners. Yes, wood slabs will be less shocky than Micarta, but the difference would be greatest going to a hidden tang and wood handle.

I used to use a product called vulcanized fiber for liners on full tangs. Sold for knife making in various colours, the usual justification for use was aesthetics and to even out expansion/contraction of wood handles on steel tangs. I had some problems with tangs rusting next to the liner and went in search of more information, only to find that a lot of more experienced makers had moved away from the material and were using thin G10. Moisture was often cited as a reason for their change of heart.

Best of luck!

Chris

 

[LukeR]

Thanks for the insight Chris! I probably should have emphasised that I also want to try it for the aesthetics. I really like the look of the liner on some of the Casstrom knives:

I'll report back on how things work out

 

[Stew]

I have to agree with Chris - I wouldn’t do it!

I have bad experiences with vulcanised fibre and I think this will be worse.