Micarta, now and then.

[J. MacDonald]

There's been a lot of guys lately making their own version of Micarta. Some of it looks pretty cool. Ariel's made some awesome looking stuff.

I have a few questions about this new era of home made Micarta:

From my understanding, real Micarta is not just fabric soaked in some form of hardeing material, but was originally developed by Westinghouse in the 20s for some very specific purposes. Westinghouse Micarta uses a phenolic resin that is not only an electrical insulator, but has predictable properties regarding heat, impact and other stresses.

Is it proper to call a home grown material Micarta or should we develop some other term to denote a new and possibly very cool handle material that is similar to in some respects, but not the same build as Westinghouse Micarta?

Am I splitting hairs here?

 

[S.Bryan Sayles]

I'd call it My-Carta

 

[butcher_block]

I'd call it My-Carta

i like that might have ot use that from now on
if its ok with you
maybe we shold standardize something so as to have people know the difference