Handle Flavors??? Poll:

[Soilarch]

I've discovered some have definite preferences as to handle materials. Obviously it's a highly personal thing but what do you prefer?

I really think I'm evenly torn between wood, acrylics, bone. The only caveat being that the blade has to "fit" the modern look for acrylic/lexan scales. There's such nice examples of each I don't think I could label myself as just a bone guy or just wood guy etc.


So what's your flavor?

[xman]

My preference is for wood, but I gotta admit that some razors are just awesome with scales of other materials. Scrimshawed bone/ How can you balk at that? Traveler's celluloid scales are works of art. etc.

X

[manah]

There are many beautiful materials for handles, but I prefer bone/horn.

[Bruce]

#1 Ram horn
#2 White bone
#3 Buffalo horn
#4 Cow(Bull) horn
#5 Cocobolo
#6 Ebony
#7 Lignum vitae

[chief]

Wood for the feel and it's many different looks;
Tortoise for sheer beauty.

[ben.mid]

My favourites are the natural materials, woods, bones, ivory, but i've seen scales on razors here that look simply stunning! Amazing celluloids, G10, Micarta, Carbon Fibre. I'll no doubt go there eventually.

[hoglahoo]

Where is the MOP, the paua, the aluminum, the silver... the WAPI?!?

[ChrisL]

Fancy that. Save for the cocobolo, my tastes are a match for Bruce's in regard to scale material although I don't have an order of preference other than preferring horn/bone vs the woods he mentioned.

I can appreciate custom wood scales and the time it takes and selection process it takes to make them, but coming from a family of avid hobbyist woodworkers and dabbling a bit myself through the years I'm drawn toward scale materials that I've had no experience with. I grew up in a house with mountains of red and white oak, black walnut, cedar, maple (figured, curly, birdseye), sycamore, cherry, pine and spruce. So those woods don't get a reaction from me like horn, bone, some synthetics, etc.

Chris L

[loueedacat]

Plastic, particularly if it's transparent. Like the lizards.

[majurey]

Mammoth bone/ivory. Amazingly beautiful natural material. Some of the bone pieces have that crusted effect where you get blues, greens, browns in the white. And the natural fissures and cracks you can see add to it I reckon. I have a mammoth ivory Livi which from distance like a smooth creamy texture, and up close you can see the underlying patterns of the material. And I have a Dovo Mammut which is almost the opposite, with crusted blues and greens running through it.

A little like this one, but with brighter blues and greens.