Cutting Micarta! Yikes!

mccandmatt

mccandmatt

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Oct 29, 2013
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Okay so most of you will already know this but for some of those like myself new to knife making this might help a few people out.

I purchased for a good price a 12"x12"x3/4" slab of ghost jade micarta. I figured I am new to making knives and this can supply me with quite a bit of handle material since most of what I will be making is just for practice, why not. Well this stuff is some seriously hard material. Hacksaw - lol, no. Sawzaw(reciprocating saw) - nah destroyed a few blades for tiny cuts, jig saw - did not even bother, band saw did okay dulled out the blade so I stopped as the bandsaw is my company tool. Finally I got a bright idea to use a wet tile saw that did the trick and kept the nasty dust down to nothing, still too a while to make some scales and it was a little dangerous getting ~3/8 thick scales.

In the end I have a bunch of scales, blocks, and misc cuts I plan to use for various things like bolsters, etc.

Thanks for reading and I hope this helps, I am sure there are other ways to cut this beastly material but the tile saw seemed to work very well for me.

Matt
 
Too bad you didn't have a band saw. I haven't cut stuff that thick but my 14TPI port-a-band cuts through 1/2" like butter.
 
I do but it's my company band saw and it was having a hard time and dulled a blade. Granted I have no idea which blade is in it, I never touch it
 
Oops. I missed you saying you tried a bandsaw. You need to go real low in the teeth count. Buy a blade with a low count for next time and swap 'em out. You probably already knew that, though.
 
If it's ghost jade it's g10 not micarta. G10 has glass fiber in it. It will dull blades but it shouldn't be that bad. My band saw cuts through it without issue.
 
what TLR said. I have a bunch of micarta and G10. The micarta I can cut on a wood bandsaw without any problems, the G10 requires a metal cutting bandsaw. I can get about 1 inch into the G10 before the blade on a wood bandsaw is dead. Ask me how I know this. :( The metal cutting bandsaw will cut the jade g10 without any problems. I have probably 100 pounds of it and it glides through the metal cutting saw.
 
How thick of material are you guys talking? The op said 3/4"... I've cut quite a bit of 1"thick stock in both G10 and Canvas Micarta and both of them have always been a royal PITA for me to cut when that thick.

Handle scale material... like 1/4 or even 3/8 cut easily, but that thick stuff has been a bear for me.
 
crap sorry, it's G10, I got mixed up in the description where I bought, it had a subscript saying Micarta and it's trademark etc.. Now I feel like an idiot for posting about micarta when it's G10
 
I think its best to buy the thickness you need and cut from there. I use a tile saw for initial cuts and a metal cutting bandsaw for profile cuts.
 
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