What are the different types of shoe knife handle?
What are the different types of shoe knife handle? |
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Riveted wooden handle |
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Most wooden shoe knife handles are attached by rivets, which involves joining the two handle halves with metal studs.
The rivets should always lie flush (level) with the handle, so they won’t catch on your hand. |
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Forged handle |
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Shoe knives made with an integral handle forged from a single piece of steel are the strongest. There is no separate handle that can work loose. | |||
Plastic handle |
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Plastic handles are sometimes riveted but are more often glued or moulded on. Glued handles are either made in two parts that are stuck together either side of the tang, or as a single moulded piece that is slipped over the end of the tang and then fixed in place with adhesive.
Gluing is cheaper than moulding and is fine if you want a lightweight knife for small jobs. |
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Moulded plastic handleYou can also get shoe knives with plastic handles that have been permanently moulded around the blade and tang in the factory. These give a comfortable grip. |
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Removable plastic handleOne versatile type of shoe knife consists of a long carbon steel blade and a separate plastic handle held on by a screw. You can use the blade with or without the handle, depending on the task at hand. Sometimes you may want to use just the flat of the blade, for instance when prising pages apart in bookbinding, or separating layers of leather. |
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Certain cutting tasks require greater force at the cutting edge. A removable handle, clamped in place by a small screw, lets you grip the knife closer to the cut to exert greater pressure.
For trimming or scraping work, you can move the handle further back. This gives a longer blade to work with and you can use it at different angles. |
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