- Joined
- Nov 2, 2010
- Messages
- 770
i'm working on my BK16 FPR mod on another thread (http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...d-Project-ATTEMPT-2-starting-on-post-29/page2) and now it's time to do the micarta handles. i figured i'd put this part up in a seperate thread, drink a bunch of beer while i was doing it, and take lots of pictures. hopefully i entertain someone out there with my project. if not, no biggie, i still got to drink beer and entertain myself and Tucker the dog who supervised. He seemed pretty dubious about my chances of success.
i learned a couple lessons on my first try on that other thread i linked, so hopefully i put them to good use here and screw up less. BTW most of these techniques/ideas i use are taken from other threads here in Beckerland or in other BF subforums. So thanks to all the smart people whose ideas i stole
--------------
FIRST, the fancy workspace. corner of my garage. with 20yrs worth of intermittent impulse tool buying:
note the mini-shop vac on the side of the workbench. anytime i was drilling or cutting micarta i put on a mask and layed the shopvac hose close by to suck up residue, dust, etc. micarta is baad for your lungs. mini shop vacs are cheap. definitely use one.
close up of important workspace. micarta, beer.
STEP 1. jigsaw to cut my micarta into 2 slabs. barbwire micarta i ordered online b/c i haven't taken the jump to making my own. yet. layed the handles out, made sure i left room all the way around when i cut.
STEP 2. held the handles in place, marked out the holes with a pen. i don't have a drill press, but i do have a router attachment for my dremel tool. (actually it's a rotozip - mega dremel tool. but same difference, they have the router/press attachments for dremel tools also). put it between two pieces of wood to hold it in place and hold the setup vertical for straight holes.
STEP 3. now i need to widen the holes i made up to the right size. i used a drill and drill bit set, and just stepped up one size at a time from the guide holes i made up to the right size. by doing it like that, the holes self-guided to stay centered and vertical.
STEP 4. learned this on trial one. need to make the recessed holes for the screw side (left side scale). the long forstner bit there is the right tool to make a flat bottomed hole. but it'll walk around in the beginning and not be centered properly over the hole if you don't have some way to keep it centered. what i did was use the other countersink bit in the pic to make the start of a countersunk hole over these holes. just went down a little to make it about as wide (or a touch wider) than the outside diameter of the forstner bit. that holds the forstner bit in place when you start so it stays centered. worked great for me.
and here's what you get.
dropped a stainless version of the hex head screw in to show the fit. side one coming along nicely.
side 2, the hex nut side.
do everything you just did over again. make VERY sure you are doing it to the correct side of the piece of micarta. because when you pick the wrong side on accident and make all those recessed holes on the inside instead of the outside of your micarta slab, you feel really really really dumb. Tucker the dog gives you the same look you get from your wife all the time. Took a short break to morosely sip beer and feel dumb.
NOTE TO SELF: always mark side, top, front, and inside/outside on your handle slabs so you don't ever do something dumb like that again.
Luckily, i was going to make 2 sets anyway (incoming FFG 16. woohoo!) so it was only a minor hiccup, and not an actual problem. i had another piece of micarta. i just ended up with a second left side earlier than i'd planned.
STEP 5. need to make hex-nut shaped holes out of the round ones i just made on side 2. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! enter harbor freight $6 mini torch that runs on butane lighter fluid. and a change-up on my next beer. because i'm sophisticated like that with my palate.
THE PLAN was to get a hex nut red hot, and then press it down into the holes i'd made (that are just a bit smaller than the hex nut used on the handles), melting the micarta at the edges into a perfect hex-nut shaped, flat-bottomed hole. THE PLAN ran into some problems.
problem 1 - the $6 Harbor Freight mini-butane torch is a complete POS. it broke after less than 2 minutes of use. Suckled beer and percolated a little bit. Realized it's after 11pm and the wife and kids are asleep. No witnesses to my Whiskey Tango solution: kitchen. gas rangetop. problem solved.
problem 2 - i don't have a drill press. i am 6'4", 250#. i decided i was as strong as a drill press and could muscle it down hard enough. here is the result of me, with a red hot nut
pressing as hard down into the micarta as i can. i put all my weight and everything i had into pushing down. i got 2mm deep, tops.
solution to problem 2 - although i didn't get anywhere deep enough, i got a great outline of the shape i wanted. so i did it to the other 2 holes, then got out the dremel tool with a small grinding tip.
used the dremel tool to grind/sand out the 6 corners to the right size, and just sanded down the flat sides a little bit. to ALMOST the size of the nut. those 1-2mm deep imprints i made with the hot nut made a beautiful template to be able to do this:
THEN, when i reheated the nut and pushed it into the hole, it only had a tiny amount of micarta to melt out of the way, and it went in much better. 1 push down for each hole. then a quick reheat and press on each one to make sure the bottom was nice and flat. worked great.
dropped one of the hex nuts in there to show fit.
so, a good start. holes drilled, setup for Becker attachment hardware for easy swapping around with the stock handles. next step is going to be to trace out the handle and rough cut it to closer to actual size. then comes the heavy sanding.
i'll update with pics as i have time to work on it. hope this is a thread of value to someone, and helps if you're thinking about making some handles for your Becker. Fun project (maybe that's the beer talking). And don't sweat it when you screw up. the screwups are my best lessons so far. Luckily for me, if you look back to the very first pic, you'll see i had the foresight to mount a bottle opener on the wall next to the doorknob and the lightswitch. booze helps with the frustrations a lot.
i learned a couple lessons on my first try on that other thread i linked, so hopefully i put them to good use here and screw up less. BTW most of these techniques/ideas i use are taken from other threads here in Beckerland or in other BF subforums. So thanks to all the smart people whose ideas i stole
--------------
FIRST, the fancy workspace. corner of my garage. with 20yrs worth of intermittent impulse tool buying:
note the mini-shop vac on the side of the workbench. anytime i was drilling or cutting micarta i put on a mask and layed the shopvac hose close by to suck up residue, dust, etc. micarta is baad for your lungs. mini shop vacs are cheap. definitely use one.
close up of important workspace. micarta, beer.
STEP 1. jigsaw to cut my micarta into 2 slabs. barbwire micarta i ordered online b/c i haven't taken the jump to making my own. yet. layed the handles out, made sure i left room all the way around when i cut.
STEP 2. held the handles in place, marked out the holes with a pen. i don't have a drill press, but i do have a router attachment for my dremel tool. (actually it's a rotozip - mega dremel tool. but same difference, they have the router/press attachments for dremel tools also). put it between two pieces of wood to hold it in place and hold the setup vertical for straight holes.
STEP 3. now i need to widen the holes i made up to the right size. i used a drill and drill bit set, and just stepped up one size at a time from the guide holes i made up to the right size. by doing it like that, the holes self-guided to stay centered and vertical.
STEP 4. learned this on trial one. need to make the recessed holes for the screw side (left side scale). the long forstner bit there is the right tool to make a flat bottomed hole. but it'll walk around in the beginning and not be centered properly over the hole if you don't have some way to keep it centered. what i did was use the other countersink bit in the pic to make the start of a countersunk hole over these holes. just went down a little to make it about as wide (or a touch wider) than the outside diameter of the forstner bit. that holds the forstner bit in place when you start so it stays centered. worked great for me.
and here's what you get.
dropped a stainless version of the hex head screw in to show the fit. side one coming along nicely.
side 2, the hex nut side.
do everything you just did over again. make VERY sure you are doing it to the correct side of the piece of micarta. because when you pick the wrong side on accident and make all those recessed holes on the inside instead of the outside of your micarta slab, you feel really really really dumb. Tucker the dog gives you the same look you get from your wife all the time. Took a short break to morosely sip beer and feel dumb.
NOTE TO SELF: always mark side, top, front, and inside/outside on your handle slabs so you don't ever do something dumb like that again.
Luckily, i was going to make 2 sets anyway (incoming FFG 16. woohoo!) so it was only a minor hiccup, and not an actual problem. i had another piece of micarta. i just ended up with a second left side earlier than i'd planned.
STEP 5. need to make hex-nut shaped holes out of the round ones i just made on side 2. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! enter harbor freight $6 mini torch that runs on butane lighter fluid. and a change-up on my next beer. because i'm sophisticated like that with my palate.
THE PLAN was to get a hex nut red hot, and then press it down into the holes i'd made (that are just a bit smaller than the hex nut used on the handles), melting the micarta at the edges into a perfect hex-nut shaped, flat-bottomed hole. THE PLAN ran into some problems.
problem 1 - the $6 Harbor Freight mini-butane torch is a complete POS. it broke after less than 2 minutes of use. Suckled beer and percolated a little bit. Realized it's after 11pm and the wife and kids are asleep. No witnesses to my Whiskey Tango solution: kitchen. gas rangetop. problem solved.
problem 2 - i don't have a drill press. i am 6'4", 250#. i decided i was as strong as a drill press and could muscle it down hard enough. here is the result of me, with a red hot nut
pressing as hard down into the micarta as i can. i put all my weight and everything i had into pushing down. i got 2mm deep, tops.
solution to problem 2 - although i didn't get anywhere deep enough, i got a great outline of the shape i wanted. so i did it to the other 2 holes, then got out the dremel tool with a small grinding tip.
used the dremel tool to grind/sand out the 6 corners to the right size, and just sanded down the flat sides a little bit. to ALMOST the size of the nut. those 1-2mm deep imprints i made with the hot nut made a beautiful template to be able to do this:
THEN, when i reheated the nut and pushed it into the hole, it only had a tiny amount of micarta to melt out of the way, and it went in much better. 1 push down for each hole. then a quick reheat and press on each one to make sure the bottom was nice and flat. worked great.
dropped one of the hex nuts in there to show fit.
so, a good start. holes drilled, setup for Becker attachment hardware for easy swapping around with the stock handles. next step is going to be to trace out the handle and rough cut it to closer to actual size. then comes the heavy sanding.
i'll update with pics as i have time to work on it. hope this is a thread of value to someone, and helps if you're thinking about making some handles for your Becker. Fun project (maybe that's the beer talking). And don't sweat it when you screw up. the screwups are my best lessons so far. Luckily for me, if you look back to the very first pic, you'll see i had the foresight to mount a bottle opener on the wall next to the doorknob and the lightswitch. booze helps with the frustrations a lot.
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Good stuff.
