Well, Okay, this isn't something I scored recently. This is all stuff I scored 25 - 30 years ago. A recent thread I read on rare handle materials made me go dig through old boxes and look through my handle materials to see what I had.
A quick bit about me. I made my first knives in high school shop class, my junior year, back in 1982-83. Teacher didn't care as long as I got my other work done and I kept it clean. It hooked me as a hobby. I bought my own grinder and used the side of the wheel for flat grinding the bevels (you can actually do pretty nice grinds that way). I made knives in my spare time and sold them occasionally and traded them more often. Went to all the gun shows and bought materials. I would occasionally buy stuff by mail order catalog, and would always send my blades to House of Muzzle Loading to have Paul Bos heat treat them.
So I got married in 1998, had a couple of kids, and haven't had a workshop for the last 17 years. I'd probably made a couple hundred knives by then, so was mostly burned out. I've only made about 25 knives the last fifteen years, without a shop, nothing is very fast. Now I'm in the process of building a shop, so my tools and materials will have a proper home to go to and be used again. I'm pretty excited about my future shop. I've accumulated some good equipment the last 15 years, so will have a pretty decent set-up when I get it built. Mostly wanting to post because I'm excited and this will all have somewhere to go.
Anyway, I always liked micarta for my handles. At that time, it was just Westinghouse micarta, and most of the suppliers were buying bigger pieces made for industrial uses and cutting them into handle slabs. Black and white/ivory paper was common, black linen was common and you could find maroon linen if you looked, and the red brown canvas was common. I definitely remember seeing an almost royal blue linen, but didn't buy any because it was only 1/8 or 3/16" thick. Then Knife and Gun Finishing (before it was sold and the owner started Texas Knifemaking) started selling camo micarta (it was rag micarta). These were nice pieces that were 1 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 3/8" thick and finished/made that thickness, not resawn from something thicker. I used it on a half dozen knives. The next time I bought some it was resawn stuff from a big thick slab. I used them a couple of times, but without a belt sander, they were a lot of work to get nice and flat. I threw the rest in my handle drawer. Digging through some boxes, I found a pretty good amount of the old, yellowing, ivory paper micarta. Mostly 1/4", but also a few pieces that are more like 1" x 1 1/4" thick pieces. I found my camo (rag) micarta. A bunch of odds and ends pieces, including a box of real ivory. I ALSO have a bunch of black canvas micarta that I had bought from Tom Maringer, the Vorpal Knives guy. He had included a nice hand written note and a catalog in with the canvas micarta. (I also have some primo woods, but that would be for another post.) But honestly, until I read that thread recently, I didn't know that the old ivory and the rag was worth more than a few bucks. So without further ado, here's some pics. Thanks for looking. Next time I'll post some pics of my knives.
*Ooops, didn't take any pics of the black canvas I got from Tom Maringer, but you know what black canvas looks like.
The rag micarta
Yellowy ivory paper micarta
A peak at some woods and other micarta
Scraps
Some real ivory
And a bag of Sambar
A quick bit about me. I made my first knives in high school shop class, my junior year, back in 1982-83. Teacher didn't care as long as I got my other work done and I kept it clean. It hooked me as a hobby. I bought my own grinder and used the side of the wheel for flat grinding the bevels (you can actually do pretty nice grinds that way). I made knives in my spare time and sold them occasionally and traded them more often. Went to all the gun shows and bought materials. I would occasionally buy stuff by mail order catalog, and would always send my blades to House of Muzzle Loading to have Paul Bos heat treat them.
So I got married in 1998, had a couple of kids, and haven't had a workshop for the last 17 years. I'd probably made a couple hundred knives by then, so was mostly burned out. I've only made about 25 knives the last fifteen years, without a shop, nothing is very fast. Now I'm in the process of building a shop, so my tools and materials will have a proper home to go to and be used again. I'm pretty excited about my future shop. I've accumulated some good equipment the last 15 years, so will have a pretty decent set-up when I get it built. Mostly wanting to post because I'm excited and this will all have somewhere to go.
Anyway, I always liked micarta for my handles. At that time, it was just Westinghouse micarta, and most of the suppliers were buying bigger pieces made for industrial uses and cutting them into handle slabs. Black and white/ivory paper was common, black linen was common and you could find maroon linen if you looked, and the red brown canvas was common. I definitely remember seeing an almost royal blue linen, but didn't buy any because it was only 1/8 or 3/16" thick. Then Knife and Gun Finishing (before it was sold and the owner started Texas Knifemaking) started selling camo micarta (it was rag micarta). These were nice pieces that were 1 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 3/8" thick and finished/made that thickness, not resawn from something thicker. I used it on a half dozen knives. The next time I bought some it was resawn stuff from a big thick slab. I used them a couple of times, but without a belt sander, they were a lot of work to get nice and flat. I threw the rest in my handle drawer. Digging through some boxes, I found a pretty good amount of the old, yellowing, ivory paper micarta. Mostly 1/4", but also a few pieces that are more like 1" x 1 1/4" thick pieces. I found my camo (rag) micarta. A bunch of odds and ends pieces, including a box of real ivory. I ALSO have a bunch of black canvas micarta that I had bought from Tom Maringer, the Vorpal Knives guy. He had included a nice hand written note and a catalog in with the canvas micarta. (I also have some primo woods, but that would be for another post.) But honestly, until I read that thread recently, I didn't know that the old ivory and the rag was worth more than a few bucks. So without further ado, here's some pics. Thanks for looking. Next time I'll post some pics of my knives.
*Ooops, didn't take any pics of the black canvas I got from Tom Maringer, but you know what black canvas looks like.
The rag micarta
Yellowy ivory paper micarta
A peak at some woods and other micarta
Scraps
Some real ivory
And a bag of Sambar
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