About Grip Materials

All Benjamin Arms Grips: Our grips are made traditionally by hand one at a time. Every single grip we produce is made of wood, and they always will be.  Wood grips absorb vibrations sent through the blade that would otherwise exhaust the hand or cause injury. Building each grip one at a time allows us to ensure the quality of wood, refine the shape, and take care with the wrapping.  The following descriptions contain information on the various wrappings and materials our grips are made of: cord wrap, ray skin, leather & wire and hardwoods.

Cord Wrap: Cord wrapped grips have for some time been overlooked.  Many antique fencing weapons had grips wrapped with cord in alternating thicknesses. Though they've been around for a while, we hadn't seen anyone make them.  Once hardened, cord wrapped grips offer fantastic purchase on a weapon. Cord wrapped grips are also the most inexpensive grip we produce. With their effectiveness and costs, they become ideal for beginners and experts alike.  Cord wrapped grips from Benjamin Arms come in five colors: oak, mahogany, brown, burgundy and black:

Ray Skin:  Some of the most sought after antique classical weapons are made with ray skin wrapped grips.  We offer our four styles of grips wrapped in black ray skin and steel wire.  Ray skin offers a lot of purchase on the grip, and is absolutely beautiful to look at.  See an example pictured with the leather & wire grips below.

Leather & Wire:  Leather & wire wrapped grips offer great purchase on the weapon like cord wrap, though leather grips are more durable and easily releasable for complex techniques like flying point attacks or disarms.  This makes them ideal for more advanced students.  Our wood cores are covered first in an undercord to which the leather is glued over.  The undercord creates peaks and valleys through the leather.  Twisted steel wire is placed within the valleys to secure the leather in place as well as add additional tact. Leather & wire grips are available on most grip styles and in the following colors: burgundy, black and brown.

Hardwood Grips: Hardwood grips are a specialty of Benjamin Arms. We started making these grips as one of a kind deluxe products, but demand shortly required them as a permanent product.  The woods we've chosen are all dense hardwoods and make excellent grips. Each grip is cut and carved by hand to a smooth finish and sealed with a shellac, ideal for something so tactile and also a UV inhibitor to protect color. Pre-cut, post shellac inlay grooves carved by hand provide the anchoring for the twisted steel wire wrapping the grip's length.  Hardwood grips are visibly striking up close and at a distance, but offer much less purchase than cord or leather & wire wrappings.  

Hardwood grips require a trained and dexterous hand to get the full benefit their slender and graceful design awards them. More information on each of the hardwood grips Benjamin Arms offers is available below: walnut, tigerwood, bloodwood, purpleheart and ebony:

Tigerwood: Originating from Brazil, Tigerwood is notably known for it's orange color and dark highlights.  It is highly prized for both interior and exterior uses for it's plesent color.  Benjamin Arms hand picked sustainably-harvested tigerwood "rip scraps", or the extra boards from larger projects. 

Tigerwood became popular in use in the early 1900's as a decorative addition to instruments, knife handles, furniture and boats.  Tigerwood was also sometimes used to make pistol handles.

These grips are very distinctive on fencing weapons.  They are a very different color than anything else out there, and we at Benjamin Arms look forward to using it in different applications.  Though we conventionally wrap these grips in steel wire, we are experimenting with brass or black coated steel wire to add to the color contrast.

Walnut: There are 21 species of Walnut trees in the Juglans genus, growing primarily in the northern hemisphere in Europe, the United States, and Canada, though can reach as far south as Argentina.  The wood has an attractive dark brown color, tight grain and polishes to a very fine and smooth finish.  Walnut has been highly prized in carving applications due to these characteristics. 

Walnut is a very strong wood, but is also much lighter in weight than other comparable hardwoods.  Because of this, it has been the wood of choice for gun makers for centuries.  It remains popularly used in rifle and shotgun stocks today.

Walnut fencing grips are extremely light while remaining strong.  Walnut grips and handles have been made for centuries, and Benjamin Arms is proud to be utilizing such a reputable wood in our weapons.

Bloodwood: The exotic hardwood Bloodwood is heavily desired for its dark sanguine color.  It's a dense grained hardwood native to French Guiana, Peru, Panama, Brazil and Venezuela.  The grains isn't as visually tight as other woods, though its finish is quite spectacular.  Popularly, bloodwood is used in a wide variety of uses.  Its used for cabinets, flooring, jewelry boxes, and humidors.  Its color ranges from deep sanguine reds to burnt oranges when finished.

The grip has hand carved insets for the twisted steel wire.  A coat of shellac protects the wood from both splintering and degrading of the color.  It's a bright and extremely eye catching grip to have on any fencing weapon.

Purpleheart:  The exotic hardwood Purpleheart has historically been a wood of choice for fencing weapon grips, though often wrapped over.  It originates from the heartwood of the Fabaceae family of trees in the tropical regions of Central and South America.  It's easy to work and cut but remains very dense and strong.  Its known worldwide for its unique rich purple color.  There's no dyes or coloring added; when exposed to air for one-two days the wood turns a rich royal purple. Purpleheart is prized for inlays, but is also popularly used for cabinets and furniture.

The grip's twisted steel wire is inset in hand-carved spiral grooves and secured in place by ebony wood pegs.  The shellac finish helps protect not only the structure of the wood, but also is a UV inhibitor to help protect the purple color.  These grips are absolutely stunning in design and practical in application on any fencing weapon.

Ebony: The exotic hardwood ebony is known worldwide for its extremely dense grain and dark black color.  Originating in the tropics of Sri Lanka or India, it's long been a luxury wood to work with and is often used in small carvings or as inlays.  Even before finishing with oil or varnish, the sanded wood is a dark, mat black.  Modern uses of the wood is most often in high quality musical instruments like violin and cello fingerboards or piano keys.  Some lavish chess sets are also have carved ebony pieces.  Ebony is a very rare wood and is harder and harder to acquire.  As such we have had to increase the prices for these grips.  The dark hues of ebony wood also vary greatly.

As a grip, ebony is wonderful to work with.  Its dense nature provides strength and lets the grip be refined slowly to the desired shape.  The grip has spiral inset grooves hand cut to slot in twisted steel wire.  The pre-oiled and shellacked finish gives the grip a bright shine while also protecting it.