How to make "Heritage Micarta" from rigid ingredients?

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Rancho5

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Feb 10, 2015
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I realize it's easier to purchase micarta, but I think making it for special knives, using unique ingredients could be really cool. For example, my father will be passing soon and making micarta scales from his old jeans and fitting those scales to knives I make for my brothers in law might be cool. "Heritage Micarta" we could call it. I'm sure it's been done before.

So here's a strange micarta question then. My wife's grandmother was known for her pecan trees. Is it possible to make micarta from pecan shells? I know I could just get a pecan branch from her tree the next time I'm in AZ but then I'd have to stabilize it, etc.

How does one go about making micarta from rigid things, instead of soft things like fabric? Specialized press?
 
Micarta is a trademark for a laminate with phenolic resins. The material is cloth or paper.

MyCarta is the common name for home made laminates. You can use any layering material you want as long as it will absorb the resins. High grade epoxy resins work, but avoid polyester resins ( you can't do phenolic resins in a home shop).

Solid objects are not made into laminates, but are cast in acrylic or other hard resins. Pecan shells would work. A currently popular object for knife handle cast scales is pine cones. When the block is cut in half it looks like a primitive centipede or a trilobite.

Corn on the cob is stabilized and can be ground just like a block of wood. It makes really interesting handles. Other solid objects are also stabilized to make them suitable for handles.
 
Can acrylic casting be done at home with some practice and reading up, or is it cost prohibitive, or not worth it and sent away?
 
Resin casting is very easy to do and there are a number of websites dedicated to it. You can get anything from part casting resin for models to solid clear resin for casting presentation objects like you see on desktops. For a one off piece you would be looking at about $100 but you can make all kinds of stuff with it as well.
 
What if I make a tiny bathtub-like form, knife scale size, fill it with crushed shells and then pour in the resin/hardener that I use for micarta. The problem I think would be that while it may make what appears to be a solid block, once sawn and sanded on, I'm pretty sure the combination of hard resin and soft shells (having not absorbed any resin) would just be a useless mess, right?
 
Try it out. Use playdough or something for the bathtub and dump the resin in. I've found that you can use a heat gun (don't scorch it) and it will help get bubbles out of epoxy.

So I would put the shells in the form, pour a little epoxy in, heat gun it to reduce the bubbles and repeat.
 
Casting handle scales with clear resin would not work well. The clear acrylic would dull down quickly with wear. Normally, you use a colored resin. Personally, I doubt the shells would end up looking very good.
 
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