Another rehandling job

I think he's referring to my brilliant idea of sucking epoxy up a straw ;) I think as long as I'm quick I'll be okay.

EDIT: Well, I just did it and I don't feel any queasier than I usually do when working with epoxy in a closed room. If I turn up dead in the next 24 hours, let it be known I want my epitaph to be "He Died Sucking Epoxy Through a Straw". Also, this stuff gets really hot when it cures, hotter than the acraglas or 2 ton epoxy. I thought for a moment it'd melt the straw, but it looks like it's holding.
 
Last edited:
blue lander said:
I picked up some 3/4" copper piping to make bolsters. I don't think I need one from a structural point of view, but aesthetically I don't think it'd look right without one. The only reason not to use one would be pure laziness. I'm trying to cut off an appropriately sized piece with a hacksaw but it's slow going. I also picked up a bolt to try to screw on to the end of the tang, but the steel is just too hard to take a thread. I've read of people destroying many a carbide drill bit trying to put a hole in these tangs for a pin, so I think the steel's been hardened....
Click to expand...

Did you use a thread-cutter tool? I wouldn't expect to be able to force a thread with just a nut, though you can sometimes do that with soft brass.
 
blue lander said:
I think he's referring to my brilliant idea of sucking epoxy up a straw ;) I think as long as I'm quick I'll be okay.

EDIT: Well, I just did it and I don't feel any queasier than I usually do when working with epoxy in a closed room. If I turn up dead in the next 24 hours, let it be known I want my epitaph to be "He Died Sucking Epoxy Through a Straw". Also, this stuff gets really hot when it cures, hotter than the acraglas or 2 ton epoxy. I thought for a moment it'd melt the straw, but it looks like it's holding.
Click to expand...
Yeah Thats it. Great idea! I just didnt know how you did it? If you could just reverse the process and blow the epoxy inside the handle and like Bawanna said just slather it all over the tang and put it all together you should be fine!
I think Phillll has a wild blueberry muffin recipe you might be interested in before you get started on your next handle fix:D

blue lander said:
The stuff is so viscous I don't think I'm in much danger, and I'd only be filling up the first 1/4th of the straw or so. I used to use a straw like that to clean the ink out of old fountain pens and I never got a mouth full of ink. The "proper" way to do it is to buy one of those bulbs for sucking snot out of a baby's nose, I suppose I should go that route rather than risk gluing my mouth shut.
Click to expand...
I had to go shopping again today! Shopping is way overrated BTW. But i thought of you BL at checkout when I saw a turkey baster with one of those baby bulbs attatched at the end of a tube that might work for fixing handles! I almost bought it except my wife was getting into my Khukri development money at the expense of thanksgiving so I abstained. I know my morals aint right but she still loves me!
 
Hi Blue, thanks for sharing your rehandling experience with us here :thumbup:
It's very interesting to follow your step by step WIP.

blue lander said:
parangs_zps519182d7.jpg
Click to expand...
FYI, even though both are parangs but rightfully the top one is categorized under Golok Rembau.
While the bottom one is categorized under Parang Lading Pendek (i.e. some people in Malaysia just called it as Lading Pendek).

Hope this helps you and other forums members to be able to refer those parangs with the correct terminology :)

mohd
 
Thank you for the correct terminology, mohd. Half the fun of buying these things is figuring out where they fit in the whole parang/golok/klewang/etc spectrum. The site I bought them from called the small one "Cap Pedang". I thought a pedang was a golok-style sword? They call the bottom one a "Ray Mears Parang" after the bushcrafter who popularized them in the west. I'm not suprised you call them something else over there :) I read the Bidor factory where these are made is rather modern with proper forges and whatnot. There's another website where you can buy "village made" parangs and goloks made with hand powered furnaces, but I haven't been able to get in touch with the guy.
[video=youtube;zE0qVTdXY4Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE0qVTdXY4Y[/video]

davidf99 said:
Did you use a thread-cutter tool? I wouldn't expect to be able to force a thread with just a nut, though you can sometimes do that with soft brass.
Click to expand...

No, I didn't. I guess it was pretty stupid of me to expect it to force it to thread with just a pair of pliers. If I can get a thread cutter tool cheaply I'll use it on the larger parang, I'm not going to bother on the smaller one.

ndoghouse said:
I had to go shopping again today! Shopping is way overrated BTW. But i thought of you BL at checkout when I saw a turkey baster with one of those baby bulbs attatched at the end of a tube that might work for fixing handles! I almost bought it except my wife was getting into my Khukri development money at the expense of thanksgiving so I abstained. I know my morals aint right but she still loves me!
Click to expand...

You've definitely got more restraint than I have. I would have bought it ostensibly to baste the thanksgiving turkey, then used it afterwards for the epoxy. Or maybe buy two, but you wouldn't want to mix them up or you'd end up with turkey micarta! The nice thing about the baby booger bulbs is that they have a rather small nozzle at the end, and you can snip it down to make it larger if you need to, so you can get an exact fit.



As you can see, this time I used a bendy straw so I could get a more traditional handle shape. It's been curing for about 16 hours but it's still bendable in the "flex" part of the straw. Hopefully it'll fully harden after 24 hours have passed. I don't know if you can make it out in the picture but there's a ton of bubbles in the epoxy. So far I'm not too impressed with this gorrilla glue epoxy, but I'll give it a full 24 hours to it harden and see how it turns out.

In the mean time I'm going to experiment with micarta colors. I'd like it to come out more natural looking than my previous attempt. I think I still have the epoxy dye from the acraglas. I'm thinking brown dyed epoxy with white fabric or black fabric might look good, sort of like a burl wood.
 
Man aint you slick! A Khukri straw:thumbup: Might look good with mixed white, brown, and black colors. I think its a good idea to use the acraglass dye. I do like the "Ray Mears" blade a lot!
 
Well, the gorilla glue epoxy straw never hardened. I was able to pull it off with my fingers. I'm assuming I mixed the epoxy wrong.

I'm almost all out of gorilla glue epoxy, but I noticed the local arts and crafts store has acrylic casting resin. It seems like some people have used this successfully for micarta. But since it's a casting resin and not an adhesive, how well will it hold the tang? Maybe I can use my remaining gorilla glue epoxy for the first few layers, then acrylic for the outer layers?
 
Whoo boy... Turns out I didn't have any acraglas dye left so I used some brown rit dye. It turned the epoxy pink. So my knife has a pink handle now. Other than that the casting acrylic resin worked quite well. I think it's more or less the same thing as acraglas. It's just as thin as acraglas, much thinner than the two part epoxies you get at the hardware store. The mixing instructions are virtually identical other than mixing equal parts resin and hardener. It seems to have bonded well to the metal, but this stuff is not meant to be an adhesive so I don't know how it will hold with hard use.

The other big problem is that the copper bolster shifted while the micarta was hardening so now it's crooked. I don't think I have to start over, but I'm going to have to do something drastic to fix it.

A few lessons I learned:

Thinner strips of fabric work better than wider ones. You can wrap them tighter.

It's much more difficult to wrap a thicker handle than a thinner one. The acrylic resin gets slippery so you can't wrap the outer layers as tightly as you'd like. It might be smarter to wrap the handle in stages rather than all at once. Wrap the handle, let it dry overnight, wrap a little more, etc.
 
Man what a collection your gonna have! Purple turd and a Pink Khuk! I always said if your bad enough it dont matter what color your wearing! You gotta post a pic of that one! Did the rit mix well with the resin? you can dye the handle again if you wanted to. Heat a dye just to boiling and pour into a water bottle or something with the top cut off. Then put the knife in covering the handle entirely with the solution and leave it overnight and it will take a dye. Or leave it pink:barf:
 
The rit dye did not mix well at all. Most of the granules were too large and did not get absorbed into the epoxy.

I think the cotton didn't fully absorb the epoxy, the insides still seem dry. I think it would absorb a dye if I applied one and wiped it off quickly, leaving the pink dye on the resin. That may result in a more pleasing pattern.
 
The exposed cotton, which is currently white rather than pink or brown, should absorb the dye but the epoxy won't, as I'll wipe it off very quickly. I did a test run and it did turn the pink epoxy slightly purple (ala my purple turd handle) but it did turn the exposed cotton completely black. I'll take a picture once it dries.
 
The dye has to be hot and left on for hours before it will dye the epoxy. If you dont heat it enough or let it soak long enough the black dye will turn dark purple. I dont know what the brown will do? I have dyed many different materials with rit dye and it work but absolutely has to be hot. I also add some salt and a spash of acetone to the solution to get it to penetrate the epoxy deeper but it is not necessary.
blue lander said:
The exposed cotton, which is currently white rather than pink or brown, should absorb the dye but the epoxy won't, as I'll wipe it off very quickly. I did a test run and it did turn the pink epoxy slightly purple (ala my purple turd handle) but it did turn the exposed cotton completely black. I'll take a picture once it dries.
Click to expand...
 
You are a fount of valuable wisdom as always, thank you for pointing me in the right direction. I don't have any black rit dye handy so I was going to use the fountain pen ink. Some moderate scrubbing with 60 grit sand paper removes all traces of black ink, so I can do some experimentation without permanently dying the handle. If I don't get satisfactory results I'll buy some black rit dye and boil it.

I think I'll seal the handle with a top coat of resin when I'm done, but I'm worried that would make the handle too slick. Right now it's very grippy, but I think the exposed cotton will absorb dirt/sweat/etc unless I seal it off. I think my method of making micarta isn't making "true" micarta because I'm not applying enough pressure to drive the resin through the fabric. But it's sturdy enough that it won't bend and flexy enough that it doesn't snap. And it's soft enough that I can whittle it with a pocket knife as if it was dried and hardened wood. It's nothing like the G10 I bought, which is more like granite than wood.
 
Here's the picture after some rough shaping. Now that it's dried, I guess it's more of a peach color than pink.

 
Dude! Thats going to look great! Your right its more peach colored and might look pretty good with the copper bolster. May try to polish out a small piece by the bolster up to 200 or so and then wet it to see what it may look like just as it is before dying. Your right about the resin ratio to fiber. There is an optimum ratio but that is something you need vacuum bagging equip presses and such to get closer to. For Khuk handles I think your headed in the right direction. I still wonder why the stuff aint hardening like it should tho? Maybe when you try smaller working batches like you say it may provide better results?
 
That pattern is really quite beautiful. The photo is a little blurry toward the pommel, but with more polishing it looks like you'll have a great handle.

If it's too hard to get the copper bolster off to straighten it out, maybe you could run another layer of micarta over it to get the right lines. That way you'd have the strength of the copper bolster without the crooked appearance. Rather than try to match the existing micarta pattern, you could do a simple dark color to complement it. Maybe even shape it to provide a bit of a down-guard for the sharp side.

Just a thought.
 
Sometimes you can heat up the epoxy and straighten it out if cure time hasnt been too long. Once you get it straight then make sure it stays there till cold again. Hair dryer on high and a pair of vice grips around bolster? Once all cool again then add epoxy in crack on loose side.
 
I think I'm going to call the handle "copper colored" rather than pink or peach and pretend I did it on purpose. Alternatively, I could boil up some of the remaining brown rit dye and dunk the handle. If it looks worse I could just sand off the outer layer until I get to white fabric again. I took a file to the bolster and filed it down so the knife facing side is more or less straight. The handle side is still crooked, but I could do as davidf99 suggested and put a thin layer of micarta over the end to make it appear straight.

I think the softness of the micarta is due to the resin not being fully absorbed into the cotton fabric. When I sand or file the handle, the cotton gets all fuzzy which must mean the resin never penetrated the inside of the fabric. It's hard enough for my purposes, and in fact might be better since it'll absorb shock better than a "hard as a rock" handle. I wouldn't be able to use it as a pry bar, but I don't think the blade would hold up to that kind of abuse either.
 
Sounds like a good plan to me! You can put a clear coat after to seal it if ya want. could always sand it down if too slippery. Cant wait to see it:thumbup: i werkin on something now too. show ya tonite maybe. Always learning something!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top