Copper micarta

D

DangerCat

Joined
Oct 16, 2015
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Would micarta bond well with a LARGE pile of copper dust well enough to make a handle? I'm thinking that the bulk of the material would be the dust, with enough epoxy to thoroughly saturate it.
 
i think it would if you stirred it up well enough. people also use acrylic resin for making pine cone handle scales and stuff like that.
 
Yeah. Slurry would be a great word here. Ive just not seen any, and I'm curious about the durability. I've seen the pinecones, and several other neat things in epoxy, but never metal dust. It seems like the eventual petina would be really amazing.
 
Aww come on. Surely someone has some extra ideas about whether or not this idea would be viable.
 
Somehow I picture a thousand tiny razor blades cutting my hand while I use the knife.

Or at least it would feel like copper sandpaper.
 
DangerCat said:
Aww come on. Surely someone has some extra ideas about whether or not this idea would be viable.
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It's only been 7 hours since your original question. Take a walk. Read a book. Forge something. Come back in a day or so and then see what those folks that do this for a living have to say.

My 2 cents, I guess....
 
Sounds cool!

I made some black burlap micarta and tinted it with with Testors Copper paint It looked cool but tarnished quickly! I wasn't expecting that..
 
A few issues I forsee. First, micarta is stronger than either the plastic resin or the substrate because it soaks into the fibers and the two reinforce eachother. The copper dust epoxy blend will be the same strength as epoxy. The second one is that the epoxy will wear away more rapidly than the copper, so unless you sand the handle very often you are going to have lots and lots of pointy metal in your handle.
 
This is a material I got from USA Knifemaker. That is copper dust mixed in with the shredded CF. I would say if you made it yourself, you want the copper dust to be swirled within the epoxy but not thoroughly mixed. Curtis Seebeck of Turn-Tex gave us a cool demo of casting with Alumilite and mixed in metallic powder, might want to look him up.

Bob

POINT SEVEN002 by Bob, on Flickr
 
DangerCat said:
Would micarta bond well with a LARGE pile of copper dust well enough to make a handle? I'm thinking that the bulk of the material would be the dust, with enough epoxy to thoroughly saturate it.
Click to expand...

DangerCat said:
Yeah. Slurry would be a great word here. Ive just not seen any, and I'm curious about the durability. I've seen the pinecones, and several other neat things in epoxy, but never metal dust. It seems like the eventual petina would be really amazing.
Click to expand...

I've done a number of experiments adding copper or aluminum powder into my burlap laminates. they were kinda meh. . .

I've also done metal foils in casting resins. I learned I will need a totally different setup for casting resins when I decide to make them.

hellspawn415 said:
A few issues I forsee. First, micarta is stronger than either the plastic resin or the substrate because it soaks into the fibers and the two reinforce eachother. The copper dust epoxy blend will be the same strength as epoxy. The second one is that the epoxy will wear away more rapidly than the copper, so unless you sand the handle very often you are going to have lots and lots of pointy metal in your handle.
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This. The resin and the substrate work together and make a reinforced system. Dust will not "tie" together or reinforce the resin and it may be brittle depending on the resin. I would not suggest epoxy, I'd consider alumilite or similar casting resin. An issue I forsee is the dust settling before the resin sets up. Another thing that may happen is the dust acting as nucleation sites for creation of bubbles, then a pressure pot will be needed.

I do doubt that dust will stand proud and turn to pointy/ sharp.

RangerBobTX said:
This is a material I got from USA Knifemaker. That is copper dust mixed in with the shredded CF. I would say if you made it yourself, you want the copper dust to be swirled within the epoxy but not thoroughly mixed. Curtis Seebeck of Turn-Tex gave us a cool demo of casting with Alumilite and mixed in metallic powder, might want to look him up.

Bob
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Neat. That gives me an idea. . .;)
 
There is also the issue of the copper staining your hands in use and the exposed copper oxidizing.
 
OK. Thanks for the alumilite suggestion. The bubbles were something I was thinking about, so the pressure pot may be important.
As to the staining, I hadn't thought of that, but for the particular knife I'm wanting to try this on, it will be used more for ornament than function. But I will keep an eye on it to see if it would be a practical issue.
I do like the looks of the carbon and dust together, which is where I originally got the idea from. I'll look in to getting some alumilite today, and maybe I can make this dog hunt.
 
Has anyone thought of using copper fabric ? They sell it for shielding purposes and what not I think it would make a beautiful scale

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
 
I've used epoxy, copper "slurry" to fill gaps/ cracks in wood for scales and it worked well and held up fine so far. About a year and the copper still shines/sparkles in the epoxy.
 
I've casted metal dust in aluminite but didn't have a pressure pot and got a ton of bubbles. The dust also settled somewhat.
 
I think it would be cool to try. JB Weld afterall is an epoxy with metallic filler. (I think a bit more to it, but thats basics ) I dont think it will be greatly strong on it own. Perhaps layer the slurry with fabric of some kind under a press..
As far as sharp ??
On a microscopic scale maybe. Of course one guys definition of dust may be another guys idea of shavings.
 
DangerCat said:
Would micarta bond well with a LARGE pile of copper dust well enough to make a handle? I'm thinking that the bulk of the material would be the dust, with enough epoxy to thoroughly saturate it.
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Think of it as a cement and sand .......... individually they are weak , but mixed made strong concrete :) Whatever you put in , the epoxy will be stronger .Cheap fishing reel are made from carbon dust and some types of epoxy . But in expensive one instead of carbon dust they put short carbon fiber / approximately 1-2mm lenght/ and that made incredibly strong product . To be harder you can put glass fiber, cut them in small lenght , will not be seen inside........And what made micarta hard is pressure ...........You don t want air inside and as little epoxy is in , stronger micarta you have . Epoxy is adhesive , the less , stronger hold particle inside .
Here's my tool for micarta . Material in this case is balistic kevlar cloth , epoxy is already inside , need high pressure and 140 celsius heat to bond ...Anything can be used for Micarta , I made one from the hair of my two children . ..waiting for blade . And sorry for my bad english :)


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in the stove

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And close to finish ..........
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