Do you like or hate this homemade "micarta"?

[S.Alexander]

I don't really like it. I made some very similar stuff once and put it on a kit knife. It ended up being too much resin for my liking, and the bubbles were ugly.

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[Omega Leather Works]

I really like the looks of burlap micarta. Either color would look appropriate on a field knife. My wife has been toying with the idea of making some burlap and/or denim "mycarta" for quite a while, so I will certainly show her this thread.

If you can make it without the bubbles, that would be good. Not so much for appearance's sake, but because it makes me wonder if the material has a bunch of little voids through it.

Definitely off to a great start, though :thumbup:

Get her some stuff and get making! It takes a minute to get all of the stuff together, and you may well end up with an unusable piece the first time, but (now that I have everything, including a game plan) it takes me 5-10 minutes to make a brick.

I went ahead and sanded an edge. I only had a course disk on the sander, so it's rough on the fibers but I kinda like it. Makes me think of a circuit board. I'll get two scales from this thin block. Much of the periphery is sacrificial.

It's apparent that the block has bubbles throughout. I think it would still work fine with a topcoat of resin, or CA. I'm going to try to work out a way to do this without the voids but I'm not sure how yet. Vacuum (thanks again Ian) may play a role. With my other pieces (not burlap) I don't get any voids at all. Maybe I can find a more tight knit burlap. As it stands, there's plenty of room for bubbles to form.

 

[crank78]

I got some material from a marine sniper that he uses to make ghillie suits out of. its tighter weave than what you have there. when I get around to making some out of it ill post up a pic.

 

[Salolan]

Strig, I just realized I had a photo of paper mycarta finished on a knife. It was made with "Tuxedo" colored card stock with a couple stripes of black in closer to the tang.

Crank, it would be interesting to see what that material would yield.

Chris

 

[james terrio]

Get her some stuff and get making!

I'm sure we will at some point. We're currently trying to get geared up for kydex, so that takes priority right now. She has a whole bag full of denim pieces leftover from her quilting days that she wants to try something with, and we both like the burlap stuff, so... it's mainly a matter of having spare time and a little cash to get the goop and a vacuum thingamabob set up.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Strig, I just realized I had a photo of paper mycarta finished on a knife. It was made with "Tuxedo" colored card stock with a couple stripes of black in closer to the tang.

Crank, it would be interesting to see what that material would yield.

Chris

Nice looking material. I've seen people do a few sheets at the tang side to create the look of a liner. It's a good idea, better than trying to integrate vulcanized fiber anyway.

I'm sure we will at some point. We're currently trying to get geared up for kydex, so that takes priority right now. She has a whole bag full of denim pieces leftover from her quilting days that she wants to try something with, and we both like the burlap stuff, so... it's mainly a matter of having spare time and a little cash to get the goop and a vacuum thingamabob set up.

Sounds good. I really want to try forming kydex as well. Please let me know when you get a vacuum rig set up. I'll want to pick your brain.

 

[GaryPogueCustomKnife]

Strig, I just realized I had a photo of paper mycarta finished on a knife. It was made with "Tuxedo" colored card stock with a couple stripes of black in closer to the tang.

Crank, it would be interesting to see what that material would yield.

Chris

Did you use construction paper or did you use thicker cardstock? I always wondered if it would be to thick to use. By that I mean not absorbent enough to laminate.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Did you use construction paper or did you use thicker cardstock? I always wondered if it would be to thick to use. By that I mean not absorbent enough to laminate.

Good question. I'd be a little worried about using card stock myself for the reason you cited. Fiberglass resin has a pretty short set time. If you used something that wouldn't set up so quickly you could use that time to soak the paper stock.

Well, I've looked into using a much better material than fiberglass resin. While I believe that the uv stable marine resin is perfectly fine, I think I can do even better. I'd rather not buy a gallon of the expensive epoxy and find out it blows (doubt it though), so I'm gonna grab a small amount and play with it. I'm hoping it's a bit less viscous to, hopefully, eliminate the voids. I believe the dyes will work fine too.

I'll keep ya'll posted.

 

[crank78]

Nice looking material. I've seen people do a few sheets at the tang side to create the look of a liner. It's a good idea, better than trying to integrate vulcanized fiber anyway.



Sounds good. I really want to try forming kydex as well. Please let me know when you get a vacuum rig set up. I'll want to pick your brain.

kydex was easy. I used two beach towels, a bar stool, a toaster oven, and sit on them to press. turned out pretty good.

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Kydass? Buttdex? You could trademark those and make a miiiillion dollars!

Seriously though, looks good. I keep eyeballing our yoga mats. Pretty close to neoprene, although probably not very heat resistant. How hot do you need to get the kydas... Er, kydex? I already have rivet tools so I just need to order the other stuff.

Any place any of you know of that sells good quality vegetable tanned leather and kydex? I need to make some leather sheaths too.

 

[Iwannashoot]

Strig,

A vacuum rig is as easy as a plastic bag and some putty tape to seal it up.

I used to work in a circuit board manufacturing plant and the guys in the press room used to do vacuum assist lamination. They would layup the "books" in the press plates and then slide the whole works into a vacuum bag(kinda like a turkey roasting bag) and seal the open end with putty tape. I think they used a 1/4" diameter piece of copper tube to connect the bag to the tube comming from the vacuum pump. The resins that we used were heat cured so the bags and putty were more high tech (had to withstand 350F and higher) than what you would need.

Make sure you use a long piece of tubing between the pump and the copper fitting at the bag seal; you do not want to suck uncured resin into the pump and then have it set up!

Good luck, and BTW I like the stuff that you made. Make sure you post pics of the finished knife.

Jeff

 

[Overmountain]

Hmmm... I heard a bag mentioned earlier... who was it that said that...


Use a trap between the bag and pump. Tube into top of cylinder, cylinder upright, tube out of other side of cylinder lid. Resin will fall down into the cylinder if it gets sucked up. PVC will work fine. You aren't going for outer space vacuum, just enough to motivate the bubbles. And agitate the mix during setup and such...

 

[fod]

I got some material from a marine sniper that he uses to make ghillie suits out of. its tighter weave than what you have there. when I get around to making some out of it ill post up a pic.

In my experience the rolls of ghillie burlap are problematic and have been spectacular and costly failures. They were coated with some anti-rot or anti-wetting agent which precludes the resins from adhering. Which makes sense, if the material soaked up water the ghillie suit could be somewhat heavy.

Perhaps you have something different and I advise you to try a small bit before committing too much to the project.

 

[Salolan]

Gary I used cardstock. It came in a book with 50 sheets 8.5x11. The color and pattern was due to the fact that the paper is just surface dyed. The lighter blue is the inner, undyed part of the paper. It soaked through well enough. I couldn't take the shortcut of only applying resin every 2 layers and letting it soak through though, I had to do it each layer.

Strig, I did somewhat put a liner layer in it. I actually did 2 sheets black, 5 sheets tuxedo stacked 4 times to get the thickness. If I remember correctly, it was a fairly cool night when I made this batch and I used about 80-90% of the recommended hardener to be sure and allow enough time to finish.

Chris

 

[Omega Leather Works]

I'd like to see a shot from the side showing the liner if possible. I haven't seen the liner done with paper. Sounds ideal.

Using less hardener, did it come out tacky at all?

 

[crank78]

Ahh makes perfect sense i bet your right i hadn't thought of that.

 

[Salolan]

I'd like to see a shot from the side showing the liner if possible. I haven't seen the liner done with paper. Sounds ideal.

Using less hardener, did it come out tacky at all?

Hardness on the handle is just fine. As for the liner layer it is a bit thin on this knife and really just part of the pattern.

Here is the knife, sorry for the horrible photo. Camera doesn't like to get in close in poorly lit shots I guess.

I know you've seen paper liners being separate, but here is one I did just before Christmas with some black paper mycarta I had made.

Chris

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Nice! Did you cast that to the tang? I just bought a set of needle files for file work. I was planning on doing the tang only, then filling with dyed epoxy. Does that sound right?

Btw, thanks for taking the time to take and post the pics. I really appreciate it.

 

[Salolan]

Yes, the file work is filled with epoxy. I dyed it black and the color turned out to match near perfectly. If you look close with the knife in hand you can see the seam where the epoxy meets the mycarta.

Chris

 

[Omega Leather Works]

Very good, that's the plan then.