Finishing a Bushlore

R

Roostabunny

Joined
Jun 21, 2016
Messages
6
Was excited to find that Condor sells Bushlore blade blanks on Amazon, as I've read great things about that blade and I'd come across some old micarta slabs that I'd salvaged from a decomm'd Naval base about 20 years ago.

I'm going to post up some pics, and have some questions about finishing this up after that. Thank you for your patience if I struggle a bit with image posting, it's my first BF post. :)

The materials...
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My sloppy glue-up... I mistook the "do not disturb" time of 20 minutes for the working time, which was actually only 5 min. So, I had some scrambling with the clamps. Didn't take pics of that part, but gloves and wax paper saved me and my bench from looking as messy as the glue-up itself. One question on this part - I got it cleaned up, but could I have stuffed something in the lanyard hole to prevent jamming it up with epoxy like I did? Or some kind or release agent?

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Next to an 80 grit 4x24 oscillating belt sander borrowed from my father-in-law.

Blanks cleaned up to the blade profile...

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I didn't mention, I profiled the front edge of the handle slabs after I cut them out and prior to gluing. Figured it'd be easier that way. Actually, I probably read that while lurking somewhere on this forum. So here I'm starting to shape the handle. I did this by eye, but in hindsight I realize I could have made a quick edge marking tool and scribed some lines on all four faces to sand to while hogging off these corners. Next time.

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Another hindsight realization - I decided where the lanyard hole and brass liner was going before I decided I was going to profile the handle so heavily. It's going to be fine, but I might have put it further inboard if I'd thought that through.

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More profiling. More hindsight - Locate the pins more evenly on the profile. It's OK, but I think it's slightly goofy that the front pin is centered in the recess and the rear is just where the palm swell breaks. Either way, I'm glad I ignored the pins and put the recesses to match the profile of the blade tang. Again, done by eye and maybe could have benefited from some measuring and marking.

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Now to hand sanding. This is through 220, I think. Love the look of that micarta and how it's getting back to the darker color as it smooths. I was hoping it would, to contrast the brass hardware. I don't have a proper full-size vice, so I'm using an old (and fairly heavy) edge-mount vice with some padding to hold it blade-vertical and then clamping a jorgensen-style wood clamp in the vice for blade-horizontal. It's working. Actually the weak point is the goofy sheet-metal bench with particle board top I'm using that came with the house. A solid bench is on the list, but I digress...

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OK, so along with a couple of pics showing a 400 grit finish (which is where I think I'll probably stop), here are the questions I've come up with. Thanks for any thoughts!

  • Handle finish - Thinking about a swipe of BLO to just give it evenness and depth. I don't expect a lot to absorb. Any thoughts on that or experience finishing micarta?
  • Blade finish - I'm not crazy about how the stick finish looks, and started lapping the blade flats on glass with some 220 grit. I think it looks better than stock, though the flats are less flat than I expected, so it's somewhat slow going, LOL. Any thoughts or opinions on that?
  • Blade spine - through over-aggressive 80 grit sander work that scratched up the back of the blade beyond the handle and then trying to hand-polish that out, I've rounded the back of the blade some. I want a sharp 90° back for use with a ferro rod, so I'm trying to bring that sharp corner back the same way as the sides, lapping on glass-mounted sandpaper. Any pitfalls I should watch out for?
  • Blade finish - Once I get the blade texture how I want it and the handle sealed, I'm thinking about a apple cider vinegar dip, so wondering about thoughts on that as well. Ever combined it with a mustard patina?


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They're on Google. Thanks for letting me know, James. I'll go search, I'm sure there's a faq or sticky on how to post images here.

Edit - here's an album link, as I think I need a paying membership to attach images. I'll probably do that at some point, but not today. https://goo.gl/photos/BfgEucDTGoiEKBo58
 
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