Liners on a knife handle
- Thread starter TomBartlett
- Start date
-
Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
they help the tang and the handle to feel more flush and smooth, they prevent water from soaking up into the scales and rusting the blade, they dont shrink or warp, and they add a little bit more strength.
Visual and cosmetic appeal, for the most part, IMHO
Liners can still shrink back slightly, given the right (or wrong, depending on your perspective) conditions and their glue-joint integrity can still be interrupted.
The reasons quoted by Siberianfury are the alleged and hoped-for outcome of using liners, which sometimes come together to work out, but it doesn't always pan out.
The theory is sound - the practice sometimes isn't, and knives were made for a very, very long time without liners...
I like them to look at (sometimes) but I've not bought into them entirely myself.
Last edited:
I prefer the minimal look myself, and have had no end of trouble with certain liner materials reacting badly with epoxy. But they have gotten me out of some sticky situations where the scales have been ever so slightly out of flat. I find that the the liner gives just enough to fill in the gaps. Personal preference innit.
JH
JH
Xunil 1 - 0 Siberianfury
he is correct though
most materials will shrink or swell over time, depending on humidity heat ect, and how do i know this? from reading xunil's posts.
Don't start paying any mind to me for heaven's sakes.
That'll end in trouble - no good will come of it, mark my words
Here's something to ponder:
Materials contract and expand at different rates, which is one of several reasons why scales on full tang knives can gradually move to the point where your nail catches either on the tang (more usual) due to scale material shrinkage or on the inner face of the scale itself (less common) due to scale material expansion.
Shrinkage is often caused by overheating during final shaping (we've all done it) but may also be a more gradual process caused largely by moisture loss - even material you might consider dimensionally stable usually isn't once you reshape it and remove some of the outer material.
Example: I had some pipe-straight Lemonwood planks, 7 - 8 feet long, 7 - 8 inches wide and a good 3+ inches thick. I bought them over 20 years ago from a timber merchant who was closing down, and one of them had its original waxed import label still stuck to it which dated it to 1908 !
You would think that it would be dimensionally stable by now, so imagine how pipped I was when I ran that plank through the saw to rip it down for longbow belly slats, all around 3/4" thick and 1 1/8" to 1 1/4" wide, and every single one of them turned a snaky "S" shape across its width within a couple of days of being sawn. On its own that plank had sat for a very long time in various stock houses and hadn't moved from its home in my workshop in the twenty odd years that I had owned it. The ripped down belly slats were all stacked back in the same spot in the workshop after sawing, laid flat on a purpose built supportive rack.
The outer timber on that plank turned out to be quite different moisture content to the inner wood, so despite its age, only the outer half inch or so was consistent and could be classed as dimensionally stable. The inner timber still had a bit of catching up to do, so it did, as soon as it was freed from the contrsaints that previously bound it.
The same can apply to smaller pieces of timber for handle materials. A friend of mine took some ancient Ebony off me a while ago to make lace-making bobbins out of - when they were cut from blocks into pencil-thick pieces, almost half of them warped and curved, despite the materials age.
This is one of the issues in handle materials moving - most knife handle blocks when cut into slabs will move a little if you leave them be for a while. The idea is to cut the block to scales, let them settle and once you are satisfied that they have moved about as much as they are likely to you can finally get to work on them.
Now bring liners into the mix:
Some liner material doesn't like many mainstream epoxy glues.
Some makers use superglue instead to try and get around this.
Some superglues produce a more brittle joint than epoxy glues.
And this is the best part - some liner material is, or used to be, porous by nature. A lot of liner material used to be cut from a firbous material that by definition would allow fluids in, which kind of flies in the face of any arguments for preventing fluid ingress.
Another factor is the number of joints:
A full tang knife with two scales has two glue joints joining three component parts to worry about (ignoring pins, bolts and thong tubes for now).
Assuming the blade is of good stainless steel then any water ingress at the handle joint should never be sufficient to cause concern, which only leaves carbon as a (potentially) valid argument for liners based on the moisture ingress argument.
A full tang knife with a scale and a single liner on each side has four glue joints joining five component parts.
A full tang knife with a scale and two liners each side has 6 glue joints joining 7 component parts.
If glue joints are the argued cause of concern, why introduce more of them into the mix ?
By doing so are we not simply introducing more likely points of failure ?
Just me thinking out loud again and causing my usual brand of trouble as a result
I have some very old knives that were assembled with goodness knows what glue and cutlers rivets and the handles aren't going anywhere in a hurry. I also have knives I made or those I have bought and traded from other makers and handle scale issues are a comparative rarity. The issues, when the do occur, seem to involve the handle material itself moving and liners aren't going to prevent that.
Like I said - I haven't bought into the whole liner thing myself, but they really do look nice, when done right.
Last edited:
see i use a linisher to shape my knife handles before sanding ect, would this mean i would be more likley to get a smoother finish if i where to use files ect?
Smooth finish comes from the grades of grits used and making sure you don't move onto a finer grit before the marks from earlier grits are all gone.
A belt grinder just makes things go faster, and generates more heat in the process.
A speed controller is a great way to improve belt life and reduce heat by slowing the grinder to just a few rpm
This allows you to work the materials with minimal or almost zero risk of heat damage.
A belt grinder is a great tool, and also the fastest way of screwing up both blades and handles...
A belt grinder just makes things go faster, and generates more heat in the process.
A speed controller is a great way to improve belt life and reduce heat by slowing the grinder to just a few rpm
This allows you to work the materials with minimal or almost zero risk of heat damage.
A belt grinder is a great tool, and also the fastest way of screwing up both blades and handles...
Last edited:
the main problem i get is easily clogged belts, like two handles and it seems to be completly ruined.
Often (but not always) this can simply be down to the belt rotating too fast. Other factors like the quality of the belt, the grit type (aly oxide, ceramic, etc) and even the weight of the backing can also influence belt life but nine times out of ten belt clogging on handle material is because the belt is running too fast.
Some makers fall into the trap of trying to push the job onto a worn belt harder - as it removes less material they assume more force will take up the slack and all it does is generate more heat - sometimes a lot of it. I have seen wooden handles crack completely due to localised overheating, metal pins/bolts/bolsters/guards burned around their edges, etc, etc
It's a natural tendency to try and get as much work out of consumables as possible but knowing when to draw a line through things and simply throw it out to avoid introducing problems is a big part of effectively using a belt grinder.
A mate of mine asked to use my workshop a while back to finish out a knife he had glued up - some really nice (and expensive) Mammoth scales went the journey in seconds. I told him to put a fresh belt on, but he knew better, right about until he realised that he didn't
All makers have screwed up handsomely on a belt grinder. Anyone who claims that they haven't hasn't made more than two knives on one.
Speed control and fresh, sharp, good quality belts are the key. A slow belt can go a very long way to improving your overall finish - unless you are hogging a lot of material out (and this goes for metal or handle material) then the slower belt is easier to control by far.
Sharp belts allow you to keep crisp grind lines. Blunt belts roll the bevels and round them, and they can also make the flats of the blade no longer flat. Throw them away once they start to struggle, even if it means you end up doing a little more by hand.
Just my opinion which, as always, you reserve the right to completely disregard.
Works for me though
Similar threads
