Found a brand new handle material!!!

Taz575

Well-Known Member
I found out that a company in CT, Current Composites, makes phenolic (micarta) and Fr4 (G10, but it is actually an insulating grade), carbon fiber and a brand new product just announced this past Wednesday called AmeraGrip! AmeraGrip is a laminate of FR4 and Nitrile Rubber, so it is similar to G10 SureTouch. Gives a nice grippy handle! I found out that the grand daughter of the guy who started the business works there and lives about 5 minutes away from me! She stopped by to drop off a set of blaze orange AmeraGrip scales on Wednesday evening, so I decided to make a knife for them! I was going to use a premade blank, but decided to do a full custom for them instead!

So I got a 62 HRC AEB-L blank that was drilled, but unground other than the profile. I figured it would make a nice EDC type blade for her to try the material out on! I epoxied toxic green liners to one side of each of the scales since they were only 1/4" thick, but the pic was taken before the liners were epoxied on. Once the epoxy cured last night, I trimmed the excess liner off, so I started with the blank and the rectangular handle scales with liners on them at 7:15pm last night:

Start.jpg

7:27 PM, I had the handle scales rough shaped out, drilled for the mosaic pins and the SS lanyard tube and the pins and tubes cut down:
1927 rough handle.jpg

handle spine.jpg

I cleaned up the front of the handle scaled to 320 grit on the belt sander and then switched over to the blade work! AEB-L is still really easy to grind, even when hardened to 62 HRC, so I was curious to see how long it would take! The cutting edge is 3 1/8" long. I started grinding with a 60 grit belt at roughly 7:30pm after marking out the edge center and where I wanted the plunge cuts. At 7:44, I took this picture after I cleaned the blade grind up with a 100 grit belt and started cleaning up the ricasso area. I also added in a fuller to the handle to reduce some weight and give an area for epoxy to build up in:
Rough grind 100 1944.jpg

And at 8:01, I took these pics! I worked from the 100 grit belt up to a 120 and 220 grit flexible ceramic grit belt to even up and round out the plunge cuts, clean up the blade bevels and clean up the ricasso some more, then went to a Trizact ceramic A45 belt. After that, I dropped down to a 180, 240 and 400 grit Compact Grain AO belt, which gives a nicer satin finish, and then used a Fine Grit Scotchbrite belt for a nice satin finish! 30 minutes from start to finish to grind out the blade!


After blade grinding was done:
grind done 801.jpg
grind done 8011.jpg

I roughed up the back side of the liners, got the pins and lanyard tube roughed up for gluing and at 8:23 pm, the handle was all clamped, front of the scales cleaned off and the JB Kwik Weld starting to cure.
clamped 823.jpg

At 8:37, the epoxy was cured, so I went into the garage to trim down the pins and tube and start shaping the handle!
837 handle start.jpg

8:37 PM, I started with an 80 grit belt to get the scales flush with the profile of the tang and started some contouring. Worked up to a 120, 220, 320 and 400 grit belt and then some quick hand sanding on a hard EVA foam backer with some 600 grit and at 8:59, took some pics after rinsing the dust off in my water bucket!
859 handle done.jpg
liner contours 859.jpg
 
Last edited:
Here is the overall knife after the 400 belt/600 hand sanding on the handle and wiping down the blade and handle with denatured alcohol:
overall.jpg

And after some Tung Oil:
finished ameragrip.jpg
liners and contours done.jpg

Got the plunges nice and even, freehand grinding is getting much better!
plunges.jpg

Just need to make up a kydex sheath tonight, sharpen and etch my logo and the date and material name! Knife is going to Current Composites for them to use in their shop! So 105 minutes from scales and a hardened blank to this! I am pretty happy with it!

The grip material is FR4/Nitrile Rubber, so it is an insulator (unlike actual G10) and they use more fiberglass layers between the rubber, so it's a bit lighter and stiffer and the colors are more vibrant. I noticed that I didn't feel the ridges between the rubber/fiberglass like I often do with SureTouch and it gives a great feel and grip to it!! I am going to be getting a lot more of this material!!!
 
Last edited:

I don't think it's been added to their FB shop yet?
 

I don't think it's been added to their FB shop yet?
Thanks!
 
Back
Top