Another rehandling job

blue lander

blue lander

Joined
Aug 16, 2011
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I mentioned in the Bhojpure thread that I got this little Kerala knife without a handle from India.

I wanted to put a handle on it, but the horrors of working with G10 were still too fresh in my mind. I had seen a video of a guy wrapping micarta directly around the tang of a knife to create a handle, and that looked a little less stressful to me than drilling out G10 and getting dust everywhere.
[video=youtube;ku6TnhRJggs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku6TnhRJggs[/video]
The knife in that video has a full length tang whereas mine was only about 3 inches long, so I'd need to somehow extend the length of the tang. It wouldn't need to be very strong but it would need to be strong and stiff enough for me to wrap micarta around it, which would give the handle its strength.

So what I did was stick a straw on the end of the tang and pour 2 ton epoxy into it. This picture is after it hardened, of course while the epoxy was still liquid I had it standing vertically.


Next step is to wrap with Micarta.
 
Awesome solution. So simple and duh once you see it but I doubt many people could have thought this up.
Loving it!
 
Thanks! I figure that pure epoxy tang extension's going to be rather brittle, and I considered mixing it with shredded cotton balls or something, but I think it won't need to be very strong once it's wrapped in micarta.

Last night I cut a pair of cotton Swiss military surplus snow smock pants into ribbons to use for micarta. I used various fountain pen inks to make a pattern on it, but since I didn't wait for the ink to fully dry before I dunked it in acraglas, it leached out into the epoxy and turned the whole thing black. Oh well. I wrapped the handle good and tight, then wrapped it as tightly as I could in some packing tape and let it harden overnight. Sorry for the blurriness of this one.






I'll give it a few more hours to harden, then unwrap it and see how it turned out.
 
Man aint you slick! Great idea! Cant wait to see this one!
blue lander said:
The knife in that video has a full length tang whereas mine was only about 3 inches long, so I'd need to somehow extend the length of the tang. It wouldn't need to be very strong but it would need to be strong and stiff enough for me to wrap micarta around it, which would give the handle its strength.

So what I did was stick a straw on the end of the tang and pour 2 ton epoxy into it. This picture is after it hardened, of course while the epoxy was still liquid I had it standing vertically.


Next step is to wrap with Micarta.
Click to expand...
 
Using packing tape was a bad idea, I tried to unwrap it and it's only coming off in little pieces. Next time I'd use painters tape. The handle feels nice and stiff like wood, but the surface is a little rubbery. I can press into it with my thumbnail. I think I was running out of epoxy towards the end, maybe I didn't use enough.
 
Try plastic wrap or shrink wrap BL. Surface epoxy never really sets up hard because it is exposed to oxygen unless it contains wax. Epoxy for surface finishing (ex. clear coat) has wax so after application a layer of impermeable wax covers it creating an oxygen barrier so it will set up hard on the final surface. You can then clean the wax off. No worry for your application tho. As you sand you will get to the hard stuff just underneath (unless mix is wrong). Ever notice the leftovers on the mixing plate is tacky and never hardens on the surface.
edit...Duhh! Plastic packing tape should have worked???
 
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Ahhh, that makes perfect sense. I'm going to just grind through the tape and the soft epoxy until I get to the tough stuff.
 
I unwrapped the handle after a few days, and it pretty much looked like a big purple turd and the outside layer was still quite soft. Slightly discouraged, I started filing and sanding away at the handle but I wasn't getting anywhere. So I started carving it with a knife.

Not bad! I still have more shaping to do, but I'm liking the patterns in the handle. It doesn't really suit this knife, but it is what it is. Here's a blurry-as-always closeup


I'm able to bend the handle slightly to the left or right if I try as hard as I can. There's no bend vertically. I decided to stress test it, so I stepped on the end of the handle and started pulling. The knife itself started to bend and the handle didn't snap or anything, so I guess that means it's strong enough. I could hear the epoxy core snap in a couple places, but that's fine since it already served it's purpose. This a small knife so a little flex is no big deal, but I wonder about using the technique with something heavy duty like a khukri. A little flexibility might actually be a good thing since it would absorb some of the impact when you chop.

Edit: Here it is after a little polishing. I still need to do more shaping to it, but I wanted to see what the pattern would look like.
 
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Love the pattern! Maybe it will harden more with time? I didnt notice but before you said you used Acraglass to saturate the Fiber? If so that may be why it is soft. Bawanna could probaby tell you more about that stuff but since it is used for rifle bedding it may not get hard as epoxy. Soft because it needs to absorb shock.
 
nice pattern.
Maybe a softer acraglass core is good since it allows for wiggling without cracking the bond between metal and handle.
How about covering the soft core now with some harder epoxy?
 
Acraglas generally dries harder than a rock. They make liquid and gel, I usually use the gel since it's 50 / 50 mix and easier to measure and just better for my purposes. The liquid is probably better for what your doing but it's mix ratio is different and I've not found a good way to measure it. I've used the liquid alot before they came out with the gel, seems like I used a syringe but it's a one time deal each time.
It's not suppose to be brittle so even when it's hard it should work well for this purpose.
It stands up to rifle recoil so a little knife flexing should be a cake walk.
 
I like that you were able to continue shaping the handle to your satisfaction. I laughed a lot when you called it a purple turd! The shape of the blade is very cool. I've seen tangs like that just inserted into carved hardwood handles with some local equivalent of Llasa.

Thanks for sharing your trials and tribulations,
:)
Mark
 
The pattern is looking good.

The tang is so thin that I've wondered if it might at some point pull loose from the hole in the handle, since there's not much gripping surface. Not a big worry, since this isn't a chopping knife, but for future reference with very narrow tangs, I think I have a solution.

The idea is to take a triangle file and cut small saw teeth in the top and bottom of the tang, with the teeth angled forward. That would greatly increase the gripping power in the forward direction since the teeth would fully engage the acraglas or whatever you use to attach the handle. The saw teeth can be small enough that the tang is not weakened. In fact this might be a worthwhile technique even for a wider tang, and it's easy enough to do.

I'm not sure this would be a good idea with a wood handle, but for any material that actually forms itself over the tang (which means it would surround the saw teeth) it should work well.
 
I second that! Especially wrapping fiber through the sawteeth. I like that idea! Purple turd:thumbup:
davidf99 said:
The pattern is looking good.

The tang is so thin that I've wondered if it might at some point pull loose from the hole in the handle, since there's not much gripping surface. Not a big worry, since this isn't a chopping knife, but for future reference with very narrow tangs, I think I have a solution.

The idea is to take a triangle file and cut small saw teeth in the top and bottom of the tang, with the teeth angled forward. That would greatly increase the gripping power in the forward direction since the teeth would fully engage the acraglas or whatever you use to attach the handle. The saw teeth can be small enough that the tang is not weakened. In fact this might be a worthwhile technique even for a wider tang, and it's easy enough to do.

I'm not sure this would be a good idea with a wood handle, but for any material that actually forms itself over the tang (which means it would surround the saw teeth) it should work well.
Click to expand...
 
Just guessing here but maybe waves will be better than triangular teeth. Teeth could saw through, especially if theres a little flex going on.
 
The handle's still bendable even after 4 days so I think it's going to stay that way. The tang of the knife extends nearly 2/3rds of the handle so it's no big deal. I think Acraglas might just be a little rubbery so it can absorb shock when used on a rifle. It's actually a very comfortable handle though, it feels alot like wood. It won't take much of a polish, either because of the Acraglas or the coarseness of the fabric I used. I still have more work to do, but at least it t doesn't look like Barney the Dinosaur's bowel movement anymore.


It's a perfectly usable handle, but it would not be suitable for a heavy chopping knife with a shorter tang. I'm reading most people use fiberglass resin from Home Depot for home made micarta, so I'm going to use that next time. I should have a parang blade arriving in a few days which is going to need a handle and I'm not sure if I should do a micarta wrap or use G10. G10 is much stronger and it would easily be strong enough for this application, but it's really not fun to work with. It's like grinding away at a cinder block made of poisonous dust. Micarta would be easier, and maybe more comfortable and shock absorbent, but I don't know if it'd be stiff enough for this application. I want to be able to do push cuts without the handle flexing .Plus I have no idea how it'll turn out using fiberglass resin as compared to Acraglas.

I think notching up the tang would be a great idea and I'm definitely going to do it with the parang. I was a little reluctant make any irreversible changes to the kerala or bhojpure because they're "vintage", but this parang is brand new so I'm not worried about defiling it or anything.

057114536d3a355bd5683f40131e5805.jpg
 
Fiberglass resin dries rock hard. I made some blocks with denim and I'd put it up against small caliber bullets. It's that tough.
 
Agreed and acraglas is just as hard. As far as notching the tang, as long as it's clean and oil free, I just rough it up a little, give the resin something to bond to and it'll never come off. Take a few licks at it with a grinder, file, drill some shallow holes, whatever, just something to create a mechanical lock.
 
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