History of FRN for Spyderco?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Hello friends! I missed you all. Question. When were the earliest Spyderco knives made with Fiberglass Reinforced Nylon handles and in general when was FRN and that class of material used for knife grips? My understanding is that our greatly missed friend Walter Blackie Collins pioneered injection molded glass fiber reinforced nylon and knew Sal Glesser of Spyderco and Al Mar and Pete Gerber and others. And the Endura and Delica first used it. I ask because someone told me that Sal Glesser was inspired by FRN AR15 M16 rifle stocks and that Sal made a prototype FRN Worker model before the Endura and Delica. Is that true history or not?

Also how are Sal and Eric and all of you doing?

[TazKristi]

SEF! So good to see you! Welcome back. You have been missed. I'll let @sal answer your questions.

Hope you are well!

Kristi

[ChrisinHove]

Hi SEF, welcome back!

[Doc Dan]

SEF!!! Man, it's been too long. I'm glad you resurfaced.

[N. Brian Huegel]

https://www.spydiewiki.com/index.php/C10_Endura

nb

[SpyderEdgeForever]

SEF! So good to see you! Welcome back. You have been missed. I'll let @sal answer your questions.

Hope you are well!

Kristi

THANK YOU for the kind welcome back Kristi! I am truly honored. Yes please tell Sal I said hello and thank you to him for all he does. You are all appreciated.

[Meadowlark]

Wow, I think a lot of people wondered where you went. Nice to see you back, I remember reading your questions years ago before I joined.

Welcome back, sef.

[bearfacedkiller]

Welcome back old friend!

[Michael Janich]

Hey, SpyderEdgeForever:

Welcome back!

In the April 2019 issue of the byte newsletter, I traced the history of the use of FRN and FRCP in knives and specifically in Spyderco products. Scroll down to the Edge-U-Cation section:

https://mailchi.mp/spyderco/spyderco-april-byte-2019

Stay safe,

Mike

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thank you so very much Michael for the welcome back and I am honored! Thank you for the article. This answers my question.
This section is exactly what I was looking for:

"In 1981, legendary knife designer Blackie Collins created the LST® (Light, Smooth, Tough) for the equally influential Pete Gerber of Gerber Legendary Blades. Based on Gerber’s best-selling Folding Sportsman I design, the LST was the first conventional lock-blade folding knife to use an injection-molded handle. While the Finnish Hackman Camp Knife, a balisong-style folder rumored to have been issued by the CIA in Vietnam, predated Collins’ design, both the engineering and the material choice of the LST’s handle were considerably more sophisticated. Specifically, the LST pioneered the concept of a one-piece injection-molded folder handle and the use of DuPont™ Zytel®, a glass-filled nylon resin."

That is what I recall. The only other early nylon polymer handle knife of significance was the Hackman Balisong (one of my all-time favorites, designed by legendary design engineer and artist Tapio Wirkkala, who also designed the Hackman Puukko update which was replicated by others).

[N. Brian Huegel]

The original LSTs were Gerber's FSI and Classic patterns with linerless Micarta handles, however, when Blackie designed the injection molded handle model (in less than an hour), they were originally Dupont Rynite (an injection molded polyester, Polyethylene terephthalate or PET) before switching to Dupont Zytel (an injection molded nylon 6 polymer with 33% fiberglass). For this design Blackie asked Pete Gerber to buy him a brand new Corvette, which he promptly did. Blackie said that this was the biggest mistake of his career because he should have asked for a royalty on every LST (and every other Zytel handled Gerber made as it was Blackie's idea) which would have earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars!

Learning from this previous mistake, he established the 5% royalty fee, the industry standard, for all collaborations that makers and designers receive to this day.

nb

[Appler]

Brian, your knowledge of this business never ceases to amaze me.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Welcome back old friend!

Thank you! It's great to see you again.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

Thank you for the information, Brian! It is truly amazing how great minds and hearts such as those of Sal Glesser and Blackie Collins when properly implemented can truly improve life for everyone.