Cheap, do-it-yourself, semi-micarta

Use the casting epoxy. It will work. The polyurethane won't. I post what I know, not what I suppose.
Bill
 
polyester resin shrinks pretty bad, epoxy will work great, it does not have to be compressed, but build it up one layer at a time tamping each layer down that will keep forcing the excess epoxy up & insure that you do not get any dry spots.

Leon Pugh
 
Bill DeShivs said:
Moonwilson
The casting resin is an acrylic epoxy. It works very well. Use waxed paper to keep it from sticking to the press.
Bill
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I've tried this a few times and have to recommend more than wax paper. I've tried it a few times but the heat from the curing epoxy melted the wax, and then the epoxy soaked through.

I heated the surface of the plates with a propane torch and melted parafin directly on the plates.
 
ive made my own "micarta" using old rags and a 10ton hydraulic press, i wanted a thick part but the press was probably too strong so what i got was a very thin part, still usable tho. i think you can use a vice as a press, it should do the trick. it will be messy.
 
Here is a write up I did about how I make home made micarta. It is not a complete on all the kinds I make but will cover alot of the basics. I have been making and selling micarta to various knifemakers for about a year so I have made just about every mistake that you can make. Feel free to ask any questions that you have and I will be happy to help if I can. I do not know how to post pics here but feel free to email me if you want to see any of the stuff I have made.

EPOXY
You do not have to use epoxy, but you probably should. You can use anything from polyester resin to acrylic resin to polyurethane glue (like Gorilla Glue). When you compare all of the above you are going to get a better overall material from epoxy. When you look at everything from chemical resistance, to toughness, to water absorbation rates epoxy will usually give you better results then any of the other. Things like Gorilla glue make some tough micarta but it is very thick and there is some question about it being 100% water proof. Now that said there are a million different kinds of epoxy and of course some are better for doing "micarta" then others. Some can take a higher temp, resist various acids/solvents better are tougher etc. So you have to look at several and pick one that you can get and that covers the most possible problem areas the best. Taking into account cost of course, I found some epoxies that I would love to use but at around 2 to 3 dollars a ounce it wasn't going to happen. Also look at the pot life and how long it takes to cure. Pot life is important because you need time to apply the stuff to the cloth or whatever and get it into the press before it starts to set up. The viscosity of the epoxy is also important. You want something pretty thin. The color of the epoxy is important when working with light colored cloth or paper. The clearer the better.

Filler Materials
I will break this down into natural fibers, paper, burlap (it has its own set of problems) and other.
I more or less only use natural fibers. Cotton, linen (flax fiber), burlap (Jute fiber) and paper.
Cotton fiber is the easiest to use for the most part. It absorbs the epoxy well, comes in many colors and weaves and looks good when finished. Take into account the thickness of the cloth when you pick it. If you are going to use two or more colors in the same piece try to get cloth that is all about the same thickness. If the cloth is thin you may have to put two or maybe even three layers of a light color like yellow if you are using it with black. That way the yellow stays yellow and the black does not show through. When you put on the epoxy you generally only have to add epoxy to every second or third sheet of cloth as they get stacked up. For some thick cloth you have to do every piece to make sure you get complete coverage.


Paper
Paper looks great. It isn't as tough as the cloth stuff of course but teh colors show well when used with a clear epoxy. Thicker paper is easier to work with 20lb-65lb paper is great. Construction paper is also nice. paper does have a few quirks. First paper absorbs a lot of epoxy, so make sure you use enough (more on that later), but it does not like to share that epoxy with anything else. In other words you have to put epoxy on every single sheet of paper that you use and cover 100% of the surface on each sheet. If you don't you will be able to peel away the layers when you are finished. If your going to work with paper reread that last part it will save you time and money.


Burlap
Burlap makes the toughest "micarta" at least that I have done. The problem with burlap is that the threads are thick and the weave is loose. Alot of space between the threads. What that means is the finished micarta has tiny voids in it. If you use a thin enough epoxy for the fibers to absorb then it is not thick enough to fill in all of the gaps. If you use a thick epoxy then the fibers don't absorb it well. Even with the tiny voids and gaps the burlap micarta comes out like a brick. The way to get around this problem is once the handle is on the knife and shaped it is given a coating of epoxy or even supper glue and then finished. You just need to know to expect this before you start using burlap or other cloth with really thick thread or big weaves.

Other
Things like fiberglass and carbon fiber. I have played around with using fiberglass and cloth together in the same piece and it works well. I just do not like working with fiberglass that much. I have no desire to work with carbon fiber so I have no experience using it.
Materials like polyester and nylon do not absorbed epoxy really. They tend to be fuzzy once you start to sand them so I do not use them either.



Now comes the making process. I use C-clamps and a couple of steel plates to make my stuff. Others use presses. I use clamps for a couple of reasons. Mainly it gives me better control over the amount of epoxy that I leave in the piece. The more epoxy you leave generally the better finish the piece will take, but it weighs more. Each kind of material likes a certain amount of epoxy and you just have to play around with what you are using until you get that part right. For a 4" x8" piece I use two 8" clamps and two 6" clamps. For a 5.25" x 9.25" piece I use six 8" clamps. You can put a crap load of pressure on the piece with these clamps. I make mainly two different styles of stuff a random damascus looking pattern and a burl like pattern. I will put some pics to show what they look like. First the Random pattern stuff.

Cut the cloth to the size you are going to make say 4"x8". If you want the piece to end up say a 1/4" thick you will have to use about 60-70 layers of cloth depending on the thickness. For a piece that size you will use about 7.5-9 ounces of epoxy. Could be more could be less, depends on the epoxy you are using and the cloth you are using. Always mix more epoxy then you think you will need. I will go ahead and say that you are going to waste epoxy and when you see how much is pressed out of the cloth when you put pressure on it you will be tempted to cut the amount of epoxy that you used on the next piece. DO NOT DO THIS. Yes you may be able to get by with less epoxy but if you don't put enough and there are spots in the piece that did not get enough or it starts to come apart when you sand it then the whole piece is ruined. SO you have to weigh using more then enough epoxy and getting a 100% solid piece each and every time or you can try to save on the epoxy and throw away every third or fourth piece. It will save you pain and money in the long run to use a lot of epoxy for each piec that you make. I use those little acid brushes to put the epoxy on the cloth. Like I said above maybe put epoxy on every other piece of cloth. To get the pattern I use a plate that I covered with beans that I split in half and hot glued to the plate. I used beans because they are cheap easy to replace and if they get embedded in the piece of micarta you can sand them out. I take the cloth once it is soaked in epoxy and put it in a zip lock bag. I place that bag between the bean covered plates and press. You end up with something that looks like the surface of the moon from were the beans pressed into the cloth. I use a 12" disk sander with a 24 grit disk to sand the piece flat. You have to remove a lot of material maybe around a 1/4"or more to get past all of the impressions that the beans made and get down to solid material. I will try to put up some pics this weekend of the steps. I am going to cut this now (I type slowly and badly forgive any mistakes) and put the steps for doing the burl stuff in another post in this thread.

Burl/rag micarta
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Forget about the whole vaccum bagging for making the burl type micarta. A lot of extra work and mess with zero payoff. Here is the newest of new ways to do it (one of a thousand I am sure). Cut up your cloth and then cut some more. You need a large amount of cloth to do this style of micarta. If you just laid out the cloth for one of the pieces in the pictures here is would be about 48" wide by 60"-70" long. What I did was cut one color cloth into very thing strips. 1/8" or there about, as small as the cloth can be cut and still stay in one piece. The other color I cut into tiny, tiny squares, more or less, as close to shredded as I could get with my cutter. I use the tiny cut cloth as a "base" color and the strips as the highlights...so to speak. Then I put it into a pan and get the epoxy ready. All of the pieces below took about 8oz of epoxy each. SOmetimes more depnding on the cloth used. You end up losing some when you press it but you have to use about that amount to get good coverage on the cloth. Once the cloth is in the pan drizzle the epoxy on the cloth a little at a time. Mix the cloth together. Drizzle more epoxy mix. Repeat. If you have ever folded eggwhites into sometime that is about the same as this. You want to keep adding epoxy and mixing the cloth until the cloth is just starting to get damp from the epoxy. You really don't need to get all of the cloth really soaked with the stuff. Every piece of cloth does not have to be wet with epoxy, but the piece next to it has to have some. If that makes sense. Then into the pans. I use one pan to hold the cloth and one to act as the press. I put both of the pans into zip lock bags or cut heavy weight garbage bags into squares and line the pans with them. This keeps everything from getting glued together and makes getting the piece out a breeze. Slowly add pressure with the clamps. I tighten, wait a few minutes tighten some more and then repeat until I can not get it any tighter with my hands. I let it sit a couple more minutes and then get a wrench and really crank down on the C-clamps. Results in almost zero air bubbles. There really isn't anything hard about doing this. It is very time consuming. It takes a while to cut all of that cloth up into tiny little pieces. Added to that is the wait time for the epoxy to dry and then sanding. Let me know if I need to be clearer on anything above or if you have any questions.
 
I think you're going to have a problem there if I understood correctly about using one part polyurethane as your setting/hardening medium. That stuff needs air to "dry", it doesn't cure.

Jim L
 
Hey Mark,

Thanks for your very informative posting! Few things I was still wondering about though.
-Do you use the knife-dipping method Melt suggested, or do you form scales in a mold? If so, what is a good way of making a mold, clay perhaps?
-In what kind of stores can you get burlap or hemp cloth? Any ordinary DIY-shop?
-When using epoxy, which I'm thinking of doing, how can you get the glue as liquid as possible? By adding paint thinner? Warming it in a pan over a fire? (Probably better do this outside...) I deemed this rather important because the more liquid the glue is, less air will remain trapped in it and also will it penetrate fibres better.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,

Gijs, Amsterdam
 
This is a very interesting thread to me. Thanks especially to the original poster: Melt, Bill DeShivs, RokJok, and Mark Nelson. I want to try this and am eagerly awaiting more information in this thread.
 
The guy said dinky, meaning cheap or what ever. I've never taken dinky to be a racial term. What do you scan the threads to see if there are obscure racial comments then bi%$# about it. WOW. WOWEY, WOW, WOW. Your probably gonna love the new hate speach laws, effectly eliminating the first ammendment, the democratic congress is about to enact.
 
I make my own micarta type handles using any linen or denim. I usually cut 14 layers. I lay down shrink wrap real smooth. Put the 1st peice down and coat it with fiberglass resin between every layer. I then lay shrink wrap across that, put a smooth board on it and them clamp it. I use even pressure but don't over tighten. Too much muscle will push out all the resin. This usually gives me 1/4" slabs.
 
moonwilson said:
Hi Melt,

I'm sorry I misinterpreted your post. I don't usually jump on people like that, without giving them the benefit of the doubt. Didn't mean to hijack your thread. I'm looking forward to hearing how your experiment turns out! I've been wanting to try something similar (that's how I was drawn into the thread into the first place) I'd like to hear how other folks' tinkering goes.

All the best,

Andy
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gee read into things and dont get so offended so easy. Its called freedom of speech whether you like it or not.
 
You folks are awesome! I appreciate all the advice, especially Mark Nelson's. My idea of using polyurethane did not turn out well at all, but through that experience and all the great tips I have received from members of this forum I certainly have been educated about micarta. Thanks again to all of you!
 
I once solved that "polyurethane stays tacky forever" problem (this was the stock of an M1 carbine that I stripped to get rid of the Korean arsenal markings) by setting the piece in the sunny window of my garage for a couple days. Sunshine seemed to help a lot. Just an idea.
 
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