G10 warping

N

North Idaho Forged

Joined
May 12, 2019
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8
I am working on my second knife and this time I am using G10. The scales came to me bent so I made them flat on the grinder and got them to the right thickness. I just ground the profile of the scales close and they warped so that when I put them together there is a gap. I am assuming I let them get too hot. I guess I should have cut them on a bandsaw instead of the grinder. Once I glue them and attach them to the knife will they Warp if I don’t keep it cool for the finish grinding?
 
That's odd. G10 is the most dimensionally stable handle material I've worked with. Are you certain that's what you're using?
 
It’s supposed to be. I ordered it and it came out of Russia so who knows. It looks correct to me from what I’ve seen online.
 
The quality of your "G10"/supplier is suspect.

If it showed up warped and warped again when finishing, it's hard to say what it will do. Frankly, I wouldn't use it.
 
I would expect G10 to get so hot that it started smoking before it warped. You can over heat or burn most anything on a belt grinder, but G10 should be pretty easy to get accustomed to.
 
It never got to where it was uncomfortable to touch and nowhere near smoking so I must’ve got some bad scales. Thank you guys for the help.
 
How thick are we talking about? I've never had G10 warp after attached to a blade, but if you over heat thinner sections then yes, its gonna warp in a hurry.
I just had it happen to me when I was cleaning up a layered liner stack of G10 before I attached it to the micarta scales. It was about 1/4 inch. I cut the thin stuff on the portaband now!
 
I just googled up the specs. Proper G10/FR-4 is rated at 285F continuous operating temp. If you were holding it then I'd say you didn't do anything wrong.

It's a shame people are selling stuff like that.
 
If you went from grinder to knife I’d say you didn’t have flat g10. I go from disc grinder to lapping on a piece of sandpaper in a figure 8 motion before I attach them to a knife that is also flat.
 
If you the belt burns your material and gets it hot you need to use new belts not old.

If your 2x72 grinder does not have a glass platen chances are you did not get it flat. I will grind G10 length wise on a glass platen, go to hog off the thickness and it is pretty flat, then go to the disc sander to get it really flat, then go to sandpaper on a glass plate to get it dead nutz flat.

Flat is flat is flat and the grinder is not to be trusted to get things flat.
 
I use a machinist square to double check for flatness after hand sanding/lapping on a granite surface plate.
 
its either not real g10 or you did not do a good job of flattening them. buy g10 from american knife supply companies. avoid ebay home made micarta and g10.
 
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