Micarta coloration advice

Nonprophet

Nonprophet

Joined
Dec 22, 2010
Messages
231
Greetings all! I've been lurking a lot lately and now I need to ask a question. I bought some black canvas micarta and I had it machined into a coral pattern to add an aggressive grip (it's what the guy I'm doing it for wanted, I think it'll tear up the hands on use but....) and my nice black micarta is now a light gray. If it were a smooth pattern I would just polish it but there's no possible way to polish this stuff the way it is pattterned so my question, how do you get the natural dark black color back without polishing? I've seen people talk of oiling but that it wears off, I was hoping to put something that would permanently return it to a solid dark black. Would Boiled linseed oil or tung oil soak in enough to be permanent without making it slick? I'm just not educated enough on this to know what I'm doing so I will submit to the knowledge of my betters. Thank you in advance!
 
Ive used linseed oil on micarta scales that I've made in the past. Yes it will return the color, and it shouldn't alter the traction negatively.

Btw do you have a pic?
 
This is what they look like right now. The machined side is gray and the smooth side is the black I would like to have and the way they came.


scale crop.jpg
 
Wow... I've never seen micarta milled so aggressively.

I would imagine that the oil would be fine. Do you have enough there to do a sample?

I'd love to see the finished product.
 
I deeply hand-grooved a G10 scale for traction, got the same light grey. At the time (a yr/2 ago) there was some discussion about restoring "blackness" on worn scales on the BM forum, so I took the advice of many and used mineral oil-- BIG mistake!! Black yeah, but sticky like honey. Had to scrub it all off (took awhile) w/ detergent, then applied my tried'n'true BreakFree-- restored the black glow w/o the stickiness of the heavier oils. A little slippery at first yeah, but I removed most of the excess w/ paper towel scrubbings.
 
I'm going to cut them to scales and then use a piece of the scrap to test various ideas. As for the milling. The place I bought them from milled them for me and this is one of their stock patterns. Made for aggressive grip, and I';; say they ARE aggressive grippers. Hope the person they're for likes them! I'll keep you updated as things go on but I warn you, I'm notoriously slow at getting things done.
 
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