New Knife - Handle Material

[Barblade]

Hi,
Well, the time has finally come for me to abandon my trusty Eriksson Mora in favour of a new knife.

However, i'm still struggling a little deciding on a suitable handle material. I prefer the warmth and natural feeling of wood, but also like the hared wearing nature of Micarta. For these reasons i'm currently toying with the idea of stabilized woods, or possibly alternate natural materials (i.e. Horn & Bone)

Any comments and suggestions would be most appreciated.

Barblade

 

[Carcajou Garou]

I like deer antler the most as it gives me a good gripping surface when my hands are wet with blood and such. It also looks good in the process. CG

 

[C_Claycomb]

It depends a little on what you are going to be doing with your knife. Lots of hunters like antler because of its grip, but this can be less of an advantage when you are doing a lot of wood carving. Also, good quality antler can be hard to find, if it is shaped a lot, to make it fit the hand, the texture is often removed.

Stabilised wood is very good, very tough, not quite so much as Micarta of course, and not as grippy when wet, but it does look good.

Have you been over on www.britishblades.com and had a look at what people are using?

Are you planning to make this handle yourself, or find a maker in the UK or US?

Woods such as cocobolo, bocote, rosewood, blackwood, epe, and osage orange are all hard, dense and oily to some degree. They all hold up remarkably well to damp and dirt with a minimal ammount of finishing.

 

[demographic]

Greenheart?

 

[leon-1]

you could try a poll on the matter.

There are pro's and con's to most things, wod has a great warmth and look, Micarta is clinically clean, but not neccesarily the nicest or warmest.

So I can see why you're looking at stabilised.

 

[eraaij]

I have one knife with stabilized redwood burl handles. Those handles look fantastic, almost pychedelic with all the detail that is in it. In use, however, the feeling of wood is pretty much gone -it feels more like micarta-. If you don't mind that, then I would say, go for stabilized wood. But personally, I like nonstabilized, well impregnated wooden handles like Maple, Olivewood or even the tough Snakewood better. They just feel more 'warm' to the hands.

-Emile

 

[happy camper]

hi, i always liked the sound of stacked birch bark as a handle material, from the pics. i've seen it certainly looks nice and natural and apparently it performs very well, being easy to maintain, warm to the touch, stable, grippy when wet and very hard wearing. If you do a search over on b.b. there's a fair bit about it and plenty of useful info if you want to have a go at making one.