After day one I decided to start working on the handles for my little prototype friction folder. While the Proto will be a friction folder, the final product will be a framelock design, and so this particular knife is merely to see what shape I want my knife to be, check ergonomics, practice grinding the bevels on the blade and to make sure all the pins and pivots are in the right places.
In this case, I decided to use some cheaper G11 (what people call jade green G10 or translucent G10) for the handles. The stuff is really, really cheap despite what custom makers will tell you, roughly half the cost of regular G10, and it makes really good material if you're just practicing. I drilled the holes for the pivot and the tang pin before shaping the handles to something that felt ergonomic, then sculpted the handles and hand sanded them until there were no more sharp edges. After that I used my buffing wheel to check for any low or high spots and gave it one last sanding.
The backspacer is made from two pieces of G11 laminated together so that the entire frame assembled looks like it was milled from one hunk of translucent jade green material. Bear in mind this is only a prototype, still a work in progress and only to check the shape of the knife handle and the fit of the blade before I jet the handles out of thick (and very expensive) titanium. It's a cute little folder, isn't it?
