Transparent or clear folding knife handles: Yea or nea?

They look great. But if polycarbonate, they'll scratch up very easily. What would make them impractical isn't that they'll scratch easily, but that polycarbonate is too brittle a material to make for a durable folding knife handle. Cracks will form around the pinned areas. At that point, there's really nothing to be done, since these are structural. As far as transparent plastics go PC is pretty durable stuff. But it pales in comparison to brass, wood, or steel.
 
Of course y'all know that Poly-Carbonate is just a fancy word for plastic? The material in question is almost certainly Lexan, if it is 'bullet proof'. Indeed, you can take a sledge hammer to a sheet of Lexan and not break it, but it is not very hard and scratches easily, which is why when employed for security purposes, it is usually sandwitched between regular glass to protect it.
 
oregon said:
I can't predict the future looks of this material because I have no experience with it. Has anyone handled/used bulletproof glass to the point that they can explain how it reacts to wear and tear? I sure don't know. Time may tell but you see these as useful, as I do, as show pieces at least. Keep em safe, keep them clean and put them on display.
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Hi oregon.

I work for one of the major armored car carriers. I sit behind bullet "proof" glass all night long. You may or may not know that bullet "proof" is a misnomer. It's more like "resistant," but I would imagine that "proof" would suffice in this role. I seriously doubt you're going to break, crack, bend or otherwise distort those frame pieces any easier than you would aluminum or titanium. That stuff is indeed tough. Whenever we take a truck out of service, we load up as many guards as we can muster and take them and the truck to a live-fire range so that they can all see what types of rounds that stuff will stop. It will take several hits in the same general area of almost any pistol round, and it will stop the first two or three rounds of .223 from a rifle, but after that, you get up to 7.62 and above, it's coming through with enough energy to really hurt what's sittin' behind it, if not kill it.

But I don't guess your question was about how many, or what types, of bullet hits your knives will take, soooo......

Let me say that I think those things look absolutely awesome. They will get clouded though. Oils and sweat from your hands will contribute mostly to that. On the trucks, it's mostly from sunlight and other elements. But it stays see-through. It won't go anywhere near opaque. Might yellow a bit, or just look kind of cloudy like an old lens on a car's headlights gets. If you pocket carry 'em, you could get surface scratches from keys or whatever. We don't go to any great lengths to keep the glass pristine (beyond avoiding bullet marks whenever possible :p), but I'm pretty sure you could polish out any such surface scratches the same way you would clean up old headlight lenses.

I'd say pick one to carry and put the others away until you determine how well (or poorly as the case may be) the pieces hold up. To my way of thinking, they'd be of no use to me just sitting in a display case. If I can't use my tools, I have no interest in just looking at them. I'd use 'em even if I knew for sure that doing so would mar them up, but that's just me. Really cool pieces no matter what you decide to do with them. Very creative. Thanks for showin' them to us.

Blues
 
BluesStringer said:
Really cool pieces no matter what you decide to do with them. Very creative. Thanks for showin' them to us.
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+1

I don't normally carry my 110 unless I have it on my belt when I'm heading towards the woods, but I think I would have to carry that one every now and then just to show it off. And I'd probably keep it in a pouch or sheath when I did to try and keep it from from clouding up as much as possible.

I think it would be a cool project to try if I run into something similar to use for scales. I'm pretty sure I can come up with a donor knife to use for the internals. I bet it wouldn't come out as good as those did, though.
 
I think they're cool as h*ll for a tabletop stand as a knick knack. I'd love to see you make one with a Cold Steel Triad and a Benchmade Axis lock. That would really be nice.
 
Thank you for looking and for the comments everyone. A lot of fun for me.

04-14-2011Bulletproof110s016.jpg


04-14-2011Bulletproof110s007.jpg
 
I'm not sure how practical it is or what advantage it might hold over regular knives, but I do like the looks of it and the ability to see the mechanism.

- Mark
 
I wonder if it's possible to use automotive safety glass and grind and drill it. I've cut it and ground it before but never had anything to drill it with, I don't think that would be a problem now with a diamond drill bit. I think they look great with a futuristic kind of theme.
 
You can drill a hole in the handle and insert a Tritium vial to make the knife easy to find in the dark.
 
A.P.F. said:
Of course y'all know that Poly-Carbonate is just a fancy word for plastic? The material in question is almost certainly Lexan, if it is 'bullet proof'. Indeed, you can take a sledge hammer to a sheet of Lexan and not break it, but it is not very hard and scratches easily, which is why when employed for security purposes, it is usually sandwitched between regular glass to protect it.
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Not really. "Plastic" is a catch-all word of which PC fits into a sub-category. "Lexan" is just one of many marketing names for PC, and the material used in the scales does not have to be Lexan.

You cannot assume all plastics to be bulletproof (bullet resistant).
 
I'll tell ya what, the more pictures you post oregon, the more I hope you post more. I'm like hyp-no-tiiiized by those things! Now, I love looking at all the pictures around here of highly customized folders with the mastodon scales, high-dollar woods, anodized liners, engravings, scrimshaw and whatnot, but there's something about the simplicity of your creations that has made me come back and just stare at those pictures a bunch of times since I first saw 'em. There's something goin' on with the refractive qualities of the material where even when they're sittin' on a reddish cloth(?) in these two pics (and others too), there's like a prism effect with fairly bright blues and greens showing inside the material:

04-14-2011Bulletproof110s016.jpg


04-14-2011Bulletproof110s007.jpg


I realize there's probably some blue/green light source nearby, but like I said, the refractive qualities are really quite stunning.

Keep the pics 'a comin'! You'll have an audience of at least one for as long as you wanna keep postin' 'em!

Blues
 
I like them. Thanks for posting. I'm pretty sure you can flame polish Lexan with a torch. If so could you do that to remove minor scratches from carry and use?
 
shecky said:
... but that polycarbonate is too brittle a material to make for a durable folding knife handle.
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That is just absolutely false. I use Polycarbonate all the time for all sorts of things and it is on the far, far opposite end of the scale from "brittle". If anything, it's less brittle than most tempered steel. Depending on the thickness, you can damn near bend a sheet of it back on itself.
 
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