Epoxy Recommendations for Lignum Vitae wood?

[Steelhog]

Hey all - I have some nice lignum vitae wood I hope to use on some future knives. Unfortunately, in reading about the wood it seems that some epoxy's don't work well with this wood. Could someone kindly recommend a good epoxy option that works well with lignum vitae and other oily woods. (I currently us gFlex 650 but unsure if that is a good option for this wood)

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Use mechanical fasteners.

 

[FredyCro]

Use heavy grit (36 or 40) to prep the scales. Degrease with a strong degreaser like acetone or alchohol, wipe off once, then wait for 10 minutes and wipe off again, you can do this multiple times until the cotton or rag show no sign of oil. Use your epoxy of choice, i had no problems with gflex.

Alternatively, do as above and glue wood to a g10 liner with CA glue and then use epoxy for the g10 to steel.

Use mechanical fasteners as suggested.

 

[Cole2525]

I've only used lignum vitae once on a hunter with dovetailed bolsters but I use oily woods a fair bit with no problems.
My favourite epoxy is G-Flex, I use it with a microfiber filler, but I think any slow curing epoxy will do the job.
I make sure the wood is very flat on ~120 grit sandpaper and wipe it down with acetone. Then wipe it down with acetone again and wait for it to evaporate, just before wetting the wood surface with epoxy.

 

[Natlek]

Hey all - I have some nice lignum vitae wood I hope to use on some future knives. Unfortunately, in reading about the wood it seems that some epoxy's don't work well with this wood. Could someone kindly recommend a good epoxy option that works well with lignum vitae and other oily woods. (I currently us gFlex 650 but unsure if that is a good option for this wood)

copy/paste from Wood Database

SOME SOLUTIONS:​

Please note that these are some solutions that can help give consistent results in gluing troublesome woods; but it is by no means a cure-all that is guaranteed to work every time, with all wood species and with all types of wood joints. On the whole, employing these tips should result in generally stronger, longer-lasting glue joints in oily woods..

1.) WIPE THE WOOD SURFACE WITH A SOLVENT PRIOR TO GLUING.​

Since the primary problem that tropical woods present in gluing is their oiliness, (with density probably being the second biggest problem), any of these natural oils and resins that you can remove from the wood surface will help the glue adhere that much better.
While it’s not a cure-all, wiping the wood with a solvent first goes a long way. But you have to be sure of two things: first, you should try to glue the pieces of wood to be joined as soon as possible after the solvent has evaporated from the wood surface. This is because the wood’s oils will tend to migrate back to the surface of the wood where you removed some of the oils. Secondly, you have to be sure that the solvent you’re using is actually dissolving and removing the wood’s oils. A good way to gauge this is by checking the towel that you’re using to wipe the solvent to see if it’s changed to the wood’s color.
A solvent should lift surface oils from the wood.

Note in the example above, mineral spirits was used to lift some of Cocobolo’s oils off the wood surface: and you can clearly see the stained orange cloth as evidence. If you’re initially testing a solvent, make sure that the wood is clear of any small particles of sawdust that might make it appear as though the towel is being discolored. Try a cloth with water first as a baseline: it should basically stay white since the water does not dissolve the wood’s heartwood extractives. Some common solvents that you can try are: acetone, denatured alcohol, lacquer thinner, mineral spirits, and naphtha.

 

[Greenberg Woods]

Hey all - I have some nice lignum vitae wood I hope to use on some future knives. Unfortunately, in reading about the wood it seems that some epoxy's don't work well with this wood. Could someone kindly recommend a good epoxy option that works well with lignum vitae and other oily woods. (I currently us gFlex 650 but unsure if that is a good option for this wood)

AS others mentioned, its a good idea to mix epoxy and mechanical fasteners when using an incredibly oily and semi unstable wood like Lignum. Gflex is a solid brand of epoxy and should work fine. Surface prep will be key as always, with roughed, clean surfaces

 

[A.McPherson]

If you wanna go really crazy with surface prep you can do like bowyers who make wood/horn composite bows.
They use hacksaw blades to "comb" the wood to horn joint, so that the two surfaces actually "key" together (like looking at a screw from the side.
It almost triples the surface area, so the glue joint is super strong!
Time intensive? Very. Effective? Extremely!

 

[FredyCro]

Then there is hollowing the handle to make an epoxy pool, and drilling epoxy bridge holes (best to also also partially drill into handle through the tang holes to effectively make internal epoxy pins).

Don Nguyen has a 2 part series on YT about gluing the handles and he uses threaded internal pins for better adhesion/hold.

In Kyle Royer vids on full tang knives you can see that he hollows the handle and then uses a dremmel tool to roughen the steel. Most of the problems I had was from what I believe is a too fine steel surface. Easily proven by putting a drop of epoxy on a polished or finely sanded steel surface and removing it with almost no effort whatsoever after cured.