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Comment by Ron Migdal (a.k.a. tower) on August 2, 2012 at 19:45

No, the handle material is proprietarily known as Kraton.  Familiarly, Thermorun.

"Kraton is the trade name given to a number of high performance elastomers manufactured by Kraton Polymers (NYSE: KRA), and used as synthetic replacements for rubber. Kraton polymers offers many of the properties of natural rubber, such as flexibility, high traction, and sealing abilities, but with increased resistance to heat, weathering, and chemicals. It was first made by the chemical division of the Shell Oil Company in the 1960s."

Since it is a co-polymer approximating rubber, it is great in freezing and wet conditions.  It also is superb at shock absorption when batoning.  However, since it ain't exactly formal-wear, may folks remove it and make their own Micarta handles.  You can purchase a fully finished blade from Falk' and apply you own handles.  The blades come full tang whereas tearing down a kraton handle will reveal somewhat undrsized tang, as it is embeded in the handle.  It won't save you any pennies, but it will negate the task of tearing down the original handle.  Mike at Bark River will make you a Barkniven A1. Their contoured micarta handle on the Fallkniven A1 shank. But the remember there are 2 shanks. One for the Kraton handle that has a smaller tang so the rubber can go around it and another for the purpose of micarta, it is a bigger tang. But I do believe Mike can work with either. Give Bark a call and talk to Mike.  You can also buy them ready-made.

http://www.knivesshipfree.com/Custom-Fallknivens

Comment by Ron Migdal (a.k.a. tower) on February 12, 2012 at 0:02

Thank you, Stephen and Chris.

Comment by stephen tungate on February 1, 2012 at 20:50

nice knife sir....