Forming Micarta handle

[jdkno]

I have a knife that came with rubber handles that I am trying to take a shot at making Micarta slabs for. I have checked all 16 pages in this area and have not come across any info that would help me out with this.

I have the micarta, canvas slabs that are 2"x6"x3/4" that I want to use.

My question is how do you form them? Do I just cut out the general shape then sand it down to form all of the curves?

How do you finish them, for instance once I get them shaped the way I want do I need to seal them or anything like that.

Lastly how sturdy is micarta? The knife has a pretty good rise on the top to keep your thumb from going onto the top of the blade but the bottom could use a bit more of a guard on it. Is that something I could form out of the micarta?

Thanks.

 

[sharpeknives]

Thats pretty much it, cut to shape, sand and file contours, You don't need to seal micarta. Its also plenty strong to make a guard. As for finish you can sand it to the desired finish, sand blast it or even polish it

This is sand blasted canvas micarta

 

[jdkno]

Thanks that is the exact look I am going for.

Now the hard part comes in, how to get two completely symetrical slabs lol.

Thanks again

 

[george tichbourne]

Epoxy or pin the slabs in place then shape the handle, no worry about matching then.

George

 

[silver_pilate]

Sounds like you're working on a full tank knife. If so, place the tang of the knife on the micarta and scribe out the shape. Using whatever you have (bandsaw, scroll saw, hack saw, etc) cut out the scales. Drill your holes in the scales to match the pin holes in your blade tang and roughly assemble everything to see how it looks. Clean it all up and epoxy/pin the handles in place and let the epoxy set up (after heat treating and fully prepping the knife steel, of course). Be sure to use acetone to clean the epoxy off the ricasso area off the knife so there's not a glob of squeezed out epoxy dried on there in front of the scale.

After it's all set up, it's time to shape them. I do my shaping on the belt grinder. The first thing I do for my handles is use a 80 grit belt to remove the excess around the tang and get the profile firmed up. Next, I use a 36 grit belt to rough out the bulk of material from the handle. I usually start by grinding in a 45* angle around the edges of the handle on both sides. I do this to thin down the edges to near the final desired thickness. This leaves a pyramid-shaped handle scale that is high in the middle. I grind this down a bit, but not all the way on a platen and then use a 80 grit slack belt to round it out. I hold the knife parallel to the floor by the blade (taped up for protection) and then rock the handle back and forth (spinning on the long axis of the knife) to round out the scale. Work your way up in grits to near 400-600 followed by buffing for linen, maybe 400 tops for canvas. Many makes finish canvas at a lower grit for texture/grip. Don't bother to buff at all as it will just stain it up.

I finish with hand sanding at 600 grit with a narrow strip of paper and a shoe-shining motion to smooth it all off around the edges. Lastly, I hand sand the tang portion of the steel to get scratch lines running parallel to the blade.

It's quick and dirty, but I hope it helps. If it's by hand tools, you'll just have to use elbow grease, files, and sandpaper to get it done.

Handles are one of my favorite parts of making a knife.

--nathan

 

[silver_pilate]

Oh, and micarta is very tough stuff. It's impervious to about anything and holds up well in all conditions. Doesn't really shrink or expand too much.
It will break, dent, or chip, but so will anything else depending on what you do to it.

--nathan

 

[jdkno]

Yeah I gathered the basics from reading what I could here, but thanks very much for putting it all into perspective. It is a full tang knife as it sits and is completely finished but it has rubber grips which I do not like and are too thin to boot. I figured I could give the knife some new life by using micarta panels for grips that I could leave oversized to give the handle some much needed girth. Also since the knife has a full tang and the tang area is almost 1/4" thick I was planning on stopping the micarta a slight bit before the end of the tang and angle grinding the steel to give me, well not sure what the technical term is but I call it a prying edge.