Liner in stock
Liners are the thin metal plates inside a folding knife handle that the scales are mounted to and the blade pivots between. They provide structural rigidity, and on a liner lock one of them is cut to form the lock bar.
Handle scales made of G10, Micarta, bone or wood are not stiff enough on their own to hold a pivot in alignment under load. Steel or titanium liners provide that stiffness, and the scales are bolted to them.
Skeletonized liners have material milled out to save weight. That is a real weight saving with almost no loss of stiffness, because the removed material comes from low-stress areas.
On a liner lock, one liner has a slot cut into it so a section can flex sideways and land behind the blade tang. That section is the lock bar. With these two pieces covered here, the rest of the knife waits in the parts of a pocket knife.
Some knives have no liners at all, with the scales themselves providing structure. That is normal on frame locks, where the handle slab is the lock, and on very light knives with molded polymer handles.
The term is not academic here. 354 of the products currently on our shelves describe this feature in their own manufacturer specifications, across 7 of the nine brands we stock. Examples in stock right now include Böker Plus Urban Trapper Gentleman, Böker Plus Little Friend Linerlock, Böker Plus Urban Trapper Linerlock.
Everything below is pulled live from the catalog, so what you see is what is actually in the Woodlawn warehouse today.
