Homemade micarta type material?

T

Taz

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Apr 28, 1999
Messages
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Anyone here make their own micarta type material? I have played with it for a bit. Layered material stacked up works well with my molds and press I have. I am doing some camo patterns where I chop up the fabric into random shapes, soak it in the epoxy and then put it into a mold, press it and let cure. The mold looks like a flat bottom V and I put pieces of steel across the 2 open ends and a piece of steel for the press to push down on. The epoxy/fabric mix is in Ziplock bags to control the overflow and so the epoxy doesn't harden on the mold or the piece that pushed down into the mold. I find I get bubbles or areas with just epoxy and no fabric. I get a good bit of squeeze out of epoxy ( the top plate has room around it for the epoxy to squeeze outand have tried 2 ton and 6 presses. The 20 ton press I tried forced almost all of the epoxy out of the fabric...lol. Would it be better to get a tighter fitting/more contained mold so the epoxy can't squeeze out as much? Trying to get the blocks to be more solid like G Carta blocks are.

For cutting down a block, I have been using a bandsaw, but it's tough material and my bandsaw sucks and doesn't cut very straight. Would a table saw work better and what type/tooth size blade would work best? Not sure if a 80T Laminate blade would be better or one with coarser teeth?
 
if your fabric is saturated, the press should not be able to squeeze it all out ? is your bandsaw blade sharp? if its sharp you should not have to push very hard to get it to cut and make it easier to do straight cuts. i think a table saw would make a wider cut and wasted material because of the blade thickness, be more dangerous and throw more dust ? that gcarta is very dense, i have tried it. seems more dense than regular micarta. do you know what they use ?
 
Have you listened to the podcast interview the knife junkies did with Greg hansen (Owner of g carta)? He gives some good info on how he makes his micarta.
 
Do you have a link to the podcast?? I messaged Greg last night and they use a carbide tipped bandsaw blade and a table saw, but he prefers the bandsaw. I may get better guides for my bandsaw (Its a 14" HF model and the guides are pretty sloppy, so I may upgrade to the roller guides and rig up a rip fence?) and invest in a blade just for cutting the g carta (vs wood and G10)? I tried a 4 TPI bandsaw blade in my bandsaw (some of the blocks I make are over 1.5" tall), but it would sometimes get caught up. A 10 tpi blade works well, but is very slow and will sometimes bind. Due to the height of the cuts, my guides are farther apart and this lets the blade curve more around the piece, so the cuts aren't always straight. Finer than 10 tpi gums up and binds quickly.

I figured a table saw would help keep the cuts more square, too? I have to do a lot of sanding to get the scales flat after cutting with my bandsaw currently (when splitting a block into scales). It would be a much thicker kerf, but would hopefully give a cleaner, flatter cut and not have to sand as much and may be better with a rip fence to control the thickness of the scales? I may try out one of my dads older spare table saws, but wanted to see if anyone here had any feedback first, especially on the blade TPI for the table saw.

Yeah, the fabric was fully saturated when I used the 20 ton press, but after 3 days of curing, I could pull apart the block. A little epoxy was left in the middle part, but most was squeezed out, so the block was very dry and crumbly. I put the epoxy in a tin tray, add the fabric and mix and let sit to make sure it is fully soaked through before pressing. The mold has areas around it that lets the excess epoxy escape, so I am wondering if I should tighten that up. Flat stacked layers are much easier to do than the camo patterns, especially thicker denim that is curled around more.
 
I've only done a couple batches and I'm definitely not an expert. I did squeeze out the excess between 2 flat surfaces with hand pressure, but that's it. I've had one or 2 glue-starves joints, but that was probably just me not using enough epoxy when I started running low. I just lay down a fabric layer, add epoxy and work it in with a popsicle stick, add another layer and repeat - too much between layers is better than too little. I've used burlap which is cool because the big weave can show an x or cross pattern depending on how you orient it. I also picked up a pair of black denim jeans from good will and cut up some khakis that were worn out to make 2 layered micarta. It turned out ok. Adding a final layer of digicam cloth didn't work as expected since it had a permanent darker wet look. Still cool though. It cuts easily with a cheap band saw. My 0.02
 
The stacked stuff comes out nice. It's when I do the came patterns when the fabric is more lumpy and have gaps of solid epoxy and no fabric. I think I will try to do the camo as layers and not have as much fabric doubled up over itself, which is where the pockets of epoxy are. Going to try to do some blocks tomorrow.
 
Taz said:
Anyone here make their own micarta type material? I have played with it for a bit. Layered material stacked up works well with my molds and press I have. I am doing some camo patterns where I chop up the fabric into random shapes, soak it in the epoxy and then put it into a mold, press it and let cure. The mold looks like a flat bottom V and I put pieces of steel across the 2 open ends and a piece of steel for the press to push down on. The epoxy/fabric mix is in Ziplock bags to control the overflow and so the epoxy doesn't harden on the mold or the piece that pushed down into the mold. I find I get bubbles or areas with just epoxy and no fabric. I get a good bit of squeeze out of epoxy ( the top plate has room around it for the epoxy to squeeze outand have tried 2 ton and 6 presses. The 20 ton press I tried forced almost all of the epoxy out of the fabric...lol. Would it be better to get a tighter fitting/more contained mold so the epoxy can't squeeze out as much? Trying to get the blocks to be more solid like G Carta blocks are.

For cutting down a block, I have been using a bandsaw, but it's tough material and my bandsaw sucks and doesn't cut very straight. Would a table saw work better and what type/tooth size blade would work best? Not sure if a 80T Laminate blade would be better or one with coarser teeth?
Click to expand...

I dont know much about laminate, but i know a lot about bandsaws. How many TPI? 80 teeth doesnt help unless i know how long the blade is. For laminates, a 2-4 tpi general blade should be fine.

As for the not cutting straight, i am quite confident that its in large part down to the guide set up, the tension and tracking. Does the cut veer off to one side and pull the material to make a diagonal cut, or is it fluttering back and forth making an over all straight, but very messy cut?
 
I've done it a couple of times. Really not that complicated This was made from hunter orange safety vests that I bought on clearance at WalMart.

S0001.jpg
 
I was thinking of the 80T for a table saw blade (10 or 12", can't remember which one?); the finer tooth ones are recommended for laminate wood stuff, so I wasn't sure about the fabric laminate and if a coarse or fine blade would be better for a table saw versus a bandsaw.

I played with my 14" bandsaw a bit recently, put a new 3 TPI blade on it and fiddled with the guides a lot to get them lines up (they are the cool block style, which isn't very accurate) and was able to do a nice cut to split a block into 2 scales that were 3" wide and around 6" long and over 1/2" thick. I really had to fiddle with the guides, so I think I will upgrade to a roller guide system since that seems so much more accurate and controlling. I was able to get a good straight cut that cleaned up well on the belt sander without a ton of waste, so I think I will keep pursuing the bandsaw method. I like to use a mold to give me a piece around 3.5" wide and 6" long so I can get 2 handles out of the block; with straighter cuts, I may be able to get 3 sets of scales out of the same block if I go a little thicker depth wise. Still gotta work on the bubbles issue, but I have a stronger press and some refining of my process to get down still. Hoping to mold more blocks this week!
LMHtCIF.jpg
 
I think I figured it out. The fabric compressed more than I thought it would and the press plate was wide enough to run into the sides before the material was fully compressed. I cut the press plate on the top down a bit and molded another piece and it looks much more solid! Hoping to cut into the new block this weekend and see how it is, but from the one end I sliced, it looks tons better!
 
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