All About Pocket Knives

Hi all, Got some blank steak knife blades from Jantz.
Need some comment on the best handle material to use.
Would like to use this buff horn I've got but not sure if it
will handle the washing up and hot water.
Would it be better using Micarta/Dymondwood..
Any comments / suggestions welcome.

Gary.

You should probably avoid the horn since it will absorb, expand, shrink as it dries and crack. Micarta or something lik eit would be better. If you can find out what wood Henckels puts on their steak knives it's great . I've been putting a set of those in the dishwasher for ten years and it still looks pretty good.

No knife in our household, aside from butter knives, go in the dishwasher or are immersed in hot water. When I ran the cutlery store, a couple of different sales reps from knife companies said the force of the water in a modern dishwasher bangs the knives and silverware around and will dull & can even chip a knife. They also said the drying cycle in some dishwashers can get hot enough to cause the steel to lose its temper. So I have managed to train everyone in our household NEVER PUT A SHARP KNIFE IN THE DISHWASHER!

When hand-washing dishes, sharp knives are never immersed in the dishwater for a very practical reason; the knives in my house are SHARP. It rather makes a mess when you reach into the dishwater and stick the tip of a paring knife in your hand or make a big gash on your finger.

Sharp kitchen knives should be used, washed in warm water, dried and return to their knife block. At the very least they are set aside and washed by hand when the cooking is finished. This is an absolute necessity if you prefer carbon steel blades as I do.

Those are the rules in my household, so it really doesn't matter what the handle material is made of if you care for it in this fashion. The knives in our kitchen have all different sorts of handles; some have metal handles, some wood, bone, stag, synthetic and even Dymondwood.

If you are actually planning on allowing the knives to set in water, (as in a dish pan) or washing them in the dishwasher, then micarta is probably the most durable material you listed. Even that will probably eventually break down.

In the 1980s my grandmother bought a couple of Henckel’s Professional Series knives from me at the cutlery store. I cautioned her not to wash them in the dishwasher. Grandma was a stubborn old Cherokee and she washed everything in her dishwasher. As a result, within about 10 years the handles of both knives were cracked badly.


I know you ask a simple question, but sometimes there are no simple answers. With proper care given to a knife it should last at least one lifetime if not two or three. Without proper care, even with the toughest materials, the life span of the knife is severely shortened.

I know dishwashers are bad for knives but it's just so easy and all my kitchen knives are cheap as cheap can be because I know my wife would never care for them properly and it isn't a battle I wanted to fight. It's also a bit of an experiment. I was curious to see how long they would last. I have to say that if I treated them the correct way as Orvet has stated they would probably last two life times instead of just one.

whatever way you go something stabilized will be better (like dymondwood, micarta, G10, or another synthetic). I use butcher knives a lot, and the ones I've rehandled in micarta are the ones I'm least worried about. Wood tends to shrink, swell, and dry out as temperatures and moisture content varies. This normally leads to cracking. I don't think I have a wood handled butcher knife that doesn't have a crack somewhere. the downside to synthetics is wood is much gripper and less prone to slipping or turning in your hand. You can always leave a rough finish on canvas micarta to help though.