- Joined
- Aug 25, 2016
- Messages
- 200
Expensive brown plastic the color of shirt. And because it is so strong, it can do it's job with much thinner pieces, the color of carp, than the older materials it replaced.
So now, I have really expensive knives that literally look like shirt, and are much thinner than the knives I bought 25 years ago.
Really THIN knives are hard to hold onto, while you are using them. And most, but not quite all scales made of carp colored carbon fiber are completely SMOOTH. So if you get the knife even a little wet, or if it is hot, and your hands perspire, the expensive THIN shirt colored knife becomes even harder to use. If you aren't careful, your hand will SLIP on your expensively acquired carp colored knife, and you will CUT your hand. Badly. If your luck is poor.
Way back when, before shirt colored scales inexplicably became so widespread on expensive knives, high end knives, and even some relatively inexpensive knives used another material for their scales.
Micarta.
Micarta is very old thermo plastic still in widespread use today] mostly as heavy duty electrical insulators. It is made in layers, much like fiberglass is made. Micarta is always made in layers, usually with cloth, paper, canvas, woven and unwoven glass fibers, and many other materials.
For nice knives, the layers of Micarta were often built up using layers of linen, as it gave the Micarta a very visually pleasing surface pattern, and gave the Micarta a fine texture that enhanced the grip, when it gets wet.
I have seen 'white linen Micarta' that looks JUST like finest ivory, It takes a very close examination, to find that is a made made material.
Micarta can be made in just about every color known to man, while carbon fiber scales ONLY are made in that very unattractive brown and darker brown color. I say: bring back Micarta, in its almost infinite variety of colors AND textures.
So now, I have really expensive knives that literally look like shirt, and are much thinner than the knives I bought 25 years ago.
Really THIN knives are hard to hold onto, while you are using them. And most, but not quite all scales made of carp colored carbon fiber are completely SMOOTH. So if you get the knife even a little wet, or if it is hot, and your hands perspire, the expensive THIN shirt colored knife becomes even harder to use. If you aren't careful, your hand will SLIP on your expensively acquired carp colored knife, and you will CUT your hand. Badly. If your luck is poor.
Way back when, before shirt colored scales inexplicably became so widespread on expensive knives, high end knives, and even some relatively inexpensive knives used another material for their scales.
Micarta.
Micarta is very old thermo plastic still in widespread use today] mostly as heavy duty electrical insulators. It is made in layers, much like fiberglass is made. Micarta is always made in layers, usually with cloth, paper, canvas, woven and unwoven glass fibers, and many other materials.
For nice knives, the layers of Micarta were often built up using layers of linen, as it gave the Micarta a very visually pleasing surface pattern, and gave the Micarta a fine texture that enhanced the grip, when it gets wet.
I have seen 'white linen Micarta' that looks JUST like finest ivory, It takes a very close examination, to find that is a made made material.
Micarta can be made in just about every color known to man, while carbon fiber scales ONLY are made in that very unattractive brown and darker brown color. I say: bring back Micarta, in its almost infinite variety of colors AND textures.
