If you want a handle that takes up almost no water and never needs wood care, choose G10. If the grain, colour and feel of wood are part of why you want the knife, choose wood, then check how that particular handle is finished or stabilised, because that decides how much looking after it needs. Neither material makes a knife dishwasher-safe. And you do not always have to pick one: VALKYRIE III, which Jacob Bech and I designed, puts stabilised oak, blue G10 and brass in the same handle.
The rest of this guide explains why the two materials behave so differently. Once you can see what is happening inside each one, the care instructions stop looking like arbitrary rules.
What G10 actually is
G10 is usually summed up in one line: glass fibre and epoxy resin, absorbs very little water. That is accurate, but it leaves out why.
G10 is a grade name, not a brand. It comes from a standard for laminated insulating materials published by NEMA, the US National Electrical Manufacturers Association. Norplex-Micarta, a manufacturer of these laminates, defines the grade as continuous-filament glass cloth in a plain weave, made from a glass fibre called E-glass, combined with an epoxy resin that is not flame retardant. The company also notes that the NEMA standard was revised in 1999 to mirror the US military specification MIL-I-24768.
Here is what each part of that definition means:
- Continuous filament means the glass is drawn into long, unbroken strands rather than short chopped pieces. Plain weave means those strands are woven over and under each other, like ordinary cloth.
- Laminate means the material is built from many layers of that cloth, stacked and bonded into one solid sheet.
- Epoxy is a thermosetting resin. Once it has cured it stays solid and does not soften back into a liquid. It fills the space around the glass and holds the layers together.
Put together, the material takes up very little water. Franklin Lamitex lists moisture absorption of 0.15 per cent for its G10 in its published data table. That figure describes the supplier’s own laminate under its own test conditions. It is not a measurement of a finished knife handle, and it is not a reason to put a G10-handled knife in the dishwasher.
The layered structure explains something that is mentioned less often: G10 is not equally strong in every direction. In the same Lamitex table, compressive strength is about 470 MPa when the load presses on the flat face of the sheet and about 240 MPa when it presses on the edge (listed as 68,000 and 35,000 psi). For a material built from bonded layers, the direction of the load matters. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) likewise reports its data for a related cryogenic grade, G-10CR, separately along the weave and through the thickness.
Where G10 and its relatives are used
The NEMA grades were written for electrical insulation, and Norplex-Micarta describes G10, at its most basic level, as a standard for materials used in electrical applications. Lamitex sums up what makes the grade useful: extremely low moisture absorption, high mechanical strength and a wide operating temperature range.
Its close relatives are defined by what they change. FR-4 is G10 with a flame-retardant additive in the epoxy. G-11 uses an epoxy system that gives it a wider range of operating temperatures, and Lamitex says it is often used in cryogenic and extreme-heat applications. G-10CR is a separate grade made for very cold work: Norplex-Micarta describes its version as having very low thermal conductivity and being produced specifically for cryogenic applications, and NIST publishes property data for G-10CR down to 4 kelvin, close to absolute zero.
None of this means a knife handle has been tested or certified for any of those jobs. The grades differ, and a handle is a shaped piece of material on a knife, not an insulating component. What carries over to your kitchen is the way the material behaves, not the credentials of its relatives.
What wood does with water
Wood is the opposite case. It is hygroscopic: in the words of the US Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Handbook, it “takes on moisture from the surrounding environment”. A piece of wood gains or loses water until it is in balance with the air around it. The handbook calls that point its equilibrium moisture content.
Where that water goes is the important part. The cell walls of wood can hold water bound inside them. They are full at what the handbook calls the fibre saturation point, on average about 30 per cent moisture content, varying by several percentage points between species and between individual pieces. Below that point the cell walls swell as they take up water and shrink as they lose it, and the piece of wood changes size with them.
That 30 per cent is a different kind of measurement from the 0.15 per cent quoted for G10, so the two numbers should not be set against each other. What matters is the mechanism. In wood, water moves into the material itself. In G10 there is very little room for it.
Wood also moves unevenly. According to the handbook, it shrinks and swells most along the direction of the growth rings, about half as much across the rings, and only slightly along the grain. Repeated wetting and drying therefore does not just make a wooden handle a little larger and smaller. It changes its shape slightly in different directions at once. Taking up water takes time, so a quick wash followed by prompt drying gives the wood much less chance to absorb it than a long soak. That is why soaking is the thing to avoid.
The same structure is what makes wood worth choosing. Grain is the visible pattern of growth rings and cells, and because it records how one particular tree grew, two handles cut from the same species will not look identical. If that individuality is what draws you to a knife, it is a good reason to choose wood.
A finish and stabilisation do different jobs
A finish sits on or near the surface: oil, wax or lacquer. The Wood Handbook is precise about its limits. Moisture changes “can be retarded, but not prevented, by protective coatings”. A finish slows water down without sealing the wood off from it, and it wears with use, which is why some oil-finished handles need their finish renewed in the way their maker recommends.
Stabilisation goes further in. Resin is introduced into the wood itself and hardened there. The Wood Handbook’s chapter on specialty treatments describes two places where resin can end up, and they behave differently:
- Inside the cell walls. Wood treated with a resin that penetrates the fibres and is then cured, which the handbook calls impreg, swells and shrinks only about a quarter to a third as much as untreated wood once it reaches equilibrium.
- Mainly in the cell cavities. In wood-polymer composites, such as wood impregnated with methyl methacrylate and then hardened, the polymer sits almost entirely in the open spaces inside the cells. The cell walls can still take up moisture, but they respond very slowly.
Descriptions of stabilised knife handles rarely say which of these happens, and the handbook’s figures come from its own treatments rather than from any knife. They cannot be used as numbers for a particular handle. What they do establish is the direction of the effect: stabilised wood moves less and responds more slowly than untreated wood, but it still responds.
Stabilisation and a surface finish are not alternatives either. A stabilised handle can also be finished with oil or wax, and VALKYRIE III is.
Two RICEKNIFE handles that show the difference
AMOR II and VALKYRIE III are our own knives. I use them here because their materials and care instructions are documented, not as a ranking of the market. Jacob Bech and I designed both. They are different complete knives, so comparing them is not a controlled experiment in which only the handle material changes.
AMOR II has a red and black G10 handle on a full tang, which means the blade’s steel continues through the length of the handle. There is no wood in it, so there is nothing to oil. RICEKNIFE’s care instructions are to wash it by hand, dry it promptly, never leave it soaking and keep it out of the dishwasher.
VALKYRIE III combines stabilised red oak with blue G10 and brass, including a brass end weight. RICEKNIFE’s product page says the stabilisation fills the wood with resin under vacuum, making it far less likely to crack, swell or take on smells than untreated wood. The wooden sections are finished with organic Danish beeswax and food-grade mineral oil, and routine oiling is not required. Its washing instructions are the same as for AMOR II.
Between these two knives, then, the care routine is not what separates them. The choice comes down to which material and which design you want to see and hold every day. The full tang is stated for AMOR II only. It tells you nothing about VALKYRIE III’s internal construction and does not show that either knife is stronger.
VALKYRIE III also shows why joints deserve attention on any handle that combines wood with other materials. Wood moves with moisture while G10 and brass hardly do, so the places where they meet are where a problem would most likely show first. If a crack appears, a joint opens or the handle moves against the blade, stop using the knife and ask the maker or seller to assess it. Oil will not fix a loose handle.
How to choose
| What matters most to you | Lean towards | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| A handle that takes up almost no water and never needs wood care | G10 | The shape and surface of the finished handle. The material name says nothing about grip. |
| The grain, colour and feel of wood | Wood | How that handle is finished or stabilised, and the maker’s care instructions for that model |
| Wood without a regular oiling routine | Stabilised wood | Whether the maker says it needs oiling. VALKYRIE III does not need regular oiling. |
| Both looks in one knife | A mixed handle | How the materials are joined, and the care instructions for each part |
| A dishwasher-safe knife | Neither material decides this | Explicit dishwasher approval from the maker for the finished knife. Neither RICEKNIFE example has it. |
| Your current knife is comfortable and sound | Keep it | Nothing. A different handle material is not by itself a reason to replace a good knife. |
The material is only part of how a handle feels. Its shape, size and surface, and the balance of the whole knife, matter at least as much. G10 is not automatically non-slip and wood is not automatically slippery. If you can, hold a knife in your usual grip before you buy it. Online, look for photographs of the handle from the side, from above and close up.
Product details reflect RICEKNIFE’s published product pages as checked on 14 October 2026. Check the product page for the current care instructions before buying.
Questions about G10 and wood handles
Is G10 waterproof?
G10 takes up very little water, but “waterproof” overstates it, and the handle material says nothing about the rest of the knife. Follow the care instructions for the finished knife. AMOR II, for example, should still be washed by hand, dried promptly and never left soaking.
Is G10 the same as FR-4?
They are close relatives but not the same grade. FR-4 is G10 with a flame-retardant additive in the epoxy. Both belong to the same family of glass-cloth epoxy laminates.
Is G10 stronger than wood?
This guide has no comparative test that would rank the two in a knife handle. Supplier data for G10 describes flat sheet specimens, and even that data changes with direction. How long a handle lasts depends on its construction and on how it is used and cared for, not on the material name alone.
Does stabilised wood need oiling?
It depends on the product and its finish. RICEKNIFE’s instructions for VALKYRIE III say regular oiling is not necessary. The routine for an untreated wooden handle should not be applied automatically to every stabilised one.
Is wood or G10 more hygienic?
This guide is not based on a hygiene comparison and does not rank them. Keep either handle clean, follow its care instructions and watch for damaged surfaces or open joints.
Sources
- Norplex-Micarta, What is G-10: Glass Epoxy?
- Franklin Lamitex, NEMA Grade Laminates
- Norplex-Micarta, NP500CR technical data sheet
- NIST Cryogenics, Material Properties: G-10 CR (Fiberglass Epoxy)
- S.V. Glass and S.L. Zelinka, Wood Handbook, chapter 4: Moisture relations and physical properties of wood, US Forest Products Laboratory, FPL-GTR-282, 2021
- R.E. Ibach, Wood Handbook, chapter 19: Specialty treatments, US Forest Products Laboratory, FPL-GTR-282, 2021
