How is Kraton® attached to the handles of Cold Steel knives?
To the best of our knowledge, Cold Steel was the first knife company in the U.S. to use Kraton® for the handle of a knife. Obviously we were correct in our choice of this material, because over the last 18 years almost every major manufacturer has adopted it for knife handles. There are two main ways to build a Kraton® handle. The first is to make a “driven-on” handle. This is like an SRK, where the handle is heated up to expand it slightly, then driven on top the tang of the blade. Once in place it can be held there by a ferrule or a bolt. The second method is to make a “shot-on” handle. In this type of construction, the liquid Kraton® material is injected under heat and pressure around the tang of the blade where it hardens. Once it has hardened it is permanently attached to the tang and needs no bolts or a ferrule.
