Strangest, Most Exotic and Bizarre Handle Materials for a Custom Knife???

Megalobyte

Megalobyte

Joined
Jun 5, 2002
Messages
2,761
Hi all.

Well, as my title suggests, im interested in sort of getting a comprehensive list together of various handle materials, including, and especially anything that is unusual and exotic.

I will briefly list the usual materials and then from there, hopefully some of you can add to the list what's missing, and tell me/us about some of the stranger materials you have seen or heard of, pictures would be great as well.

So, ill start by listing:

Gold, Black, and White lip pearl. Jade. Tiger Coral. Some colored minerals.

Elephant, Mammoth, Walrus ivory and Oosic. Fossil Giraffe and Seacow bone.

Desert ironwood, Buckeye burl, Walnut burl, Snakewood, Cocobolo, Zircote, Ebony, Rosewood, Bubinga, Box Elder, Thuya Burl, and feel free to add your favorites or any i missed.

Micarta, Rag Micarta, Linen Micarta, and Canvas Micarta. Also Busse's "Snakeskin Nukarta", whatever that is. :)

G10, Carbon Fiber, Zytel.

Damascus, Timascus etc.

OK, im all out. :)

It would be nice if you could add to the list, anything i missed and anything unusual, and in doing so, we'll create, hopefully, a fairly comprehensive list of handle materials to aid future custom knife buyers when searching for that perfect material in their knife.

Well, fire away. :)
 
Gold quartz (quartz with thin gold veins) and pink ivory are others we can add to the list.
 
Wow! Quartz and gold, it never occurred to me. And this from a guy who collected and then sold off lots of mineral specimens over the last 10 years, id love to see a picture, hint, hint. :)

Now that you gave me the idea, i can envision lots of neat minerals as handle materials, like quartz included with golden rutile crystals or black/blue tourmaline, how cool would THAT be. Slabs of multi-colored Fluorite would be nice, but too soft as it can be scratched with steel. Ever seen rainbow obsideon, that would look awesome.

But with the entire mineral kingdom available, i know there are lots of interesting possibilities that never occured to me.

Thanks for the idea.

OK, lets keep them coming, this is a public service for future knife buyers who want a really cool handle material but dont know what to ask for or whats possible.
 
oh, i just remember. at NYCK show, i saw a knife maker using a stabilized corn cob for his knife handle. looks nice.
 
Just remembered seeing a Fujisaka knife with a Bamboo handle.

Thanks so far, keep 'em coming.
 
Well, I do not know about handle materials but we had a peditician [baby doctor, bad spelling] come to the abs school and bring the little circumsion blades he had saved over the years to weld in his damascus blade. It welded fine and made a neat little hunter. Neat thing about it is when you pulled it in and out of the sheath a few times it turned into a big bowie knife.
jf
 
Mammoth tooth root is the wildest material I buy .I sell all I get to Schuyler Lovestrand.I am cutting up a couple of big musk ox horns and find them very interesting.
Chuck
 

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I remember seeing a particular type of cactus that had a series of holes in and through it. It was filled with an epoxy resin and stabilized. looked..........................like cactus that had epoxy in it!:eek: :cool:
 
Okay, here's some ivory for you:

Fossil walrus in a rich caramel colour on an Al Dippold folder:

picture.JPG


Fosssil walrus in soft off-white colour on a Jerry Fisk hunter:

picture.JPG


Elephant ivory on a Brian Lyttle small fighter:

picture.JPG


Cheers,

RogerP

All photos by Murray White
 
And how about some wood?

Thuya burl on a Jerry Fisk bowie (my pic):

picture.JPG


And some good ol' ironwood on a Roger Massey bowie (Murray's pic):

picture.JPG


Cheers,

Roger
 
Tom Bullard sometimes uses armadillo tails for handles.

Maybe the coolest handle material I've seen would be a cave bear fang - I think it was on a Roger Bergh knife (makes you glad cave bears ain't around no more, yikes!).

Similarly, a fossilized sperm whale tooth or part of a narwhal tooth (looks like you stole it off a passing unicorn) are really nice.

I've seen a beautiful Eskimo basket woven of baleen - a woven/braided handle made of this would be amazing (it's extremely tough stuff too).

'Course, you might wake up to find Greenpeace circling your shop if you actually used some of these materials.

And don't forget about amber and horn from sheep and antelope.
 
OK, now you went and did it! Showing off pics of your favorite handles, well, two can play at THAT game! :)

First, a RB Johnson folder with VIVID blue Mammoth ivory handles.
Johnson%20S3.jpg


Next, black lip pearl on a Zscherney folder:
Zscherny1Hdle.jpg


Here is a pretty snakewood handle on a Cook fixed:
Cook%20Hunter.jpg


I dont know what type of wood this is on this Hogstrom dagger, but its awfully nice:
Hogstrom%20CU.JPG


Finally I'll end with this Lerch folder with tiger coral handle:

Lerch%202.jpg
 
I love the patterns that you can get from using meteorite for a handle.

On primitive knives I have seen the jaws of animals such as bear and deer used to make handles. I have also seen leg bones from deer used that includes the end of the bone.
 
Well, you asked...
For a small one, I would throw in a
large coon prick. Most unusual piece of ivory
you will ever see. For you who have never seen
one, your in for a treat.

tc
 
I saw a small pocketknife made during the civil war ona historic display that had human bone for the scales !
 
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