micarta washers handles

[jcs71]

I was wondering how difficult would it be to make a knife handle out of micarta washers? What I mean is, lets say I wanted a custom version of the WW2 Quartermaster knife. Roughly 6-61/2" blade out of modern stainless type steel. Stainless guard and stainless round butt cap like on the Kabar knives. The handle would be made out of micarta washers. For each section would be one washer. The groove part of the handle would be a smaller micarta washer. This alternating process would be repeated until you are done. The middle of the handle would swell and the handle section near the guard would taper into the guard . The same type of tapering for the washers near the butt cap. Basically it would look just like a leather handle on a Kabar type knife except made out of different sizes of micarta washers.
Please forgive any spelling errors.

 

[Chuck Gedraitis Knives]

It sounds like it would be pretty easy to do. I would cut the groves with a round file so that they have a radius at the bottom and not square like they would be it you used smaller pieces of micarta.

 

[Kevin Jones]

IMO the only thing worst than a micarta handle would be a micarta washer handle :thumbdn:

But seriously, the stacked leather look, but utilizing micarta washers, for a hard use or tactical knife would be way COOL. :thumbup:

I'm just not a fan of artificial handle materials.

 

[tom mayo]

Tell the to RWL!!!!!

 

[Zemapeli]

Well i'm going to try this with a knife, not a quartermaster. That would be even better. I'll let you know how it goes. It really would be much easier to just layer different colors of canvas when you make the micarta, as opposed to making seperate washers. You can still make the shape of a kabar stacked leather handle, but with whatever color(s) you want. File/Rat Tail file (for the grooves) the handle into the shape you want. In my opinion, it would be better to have one solid peice of material for the handle as opposed to layers of washers. Knives with a pommel pinned directly to the tang (M2 style handle/gaurd) use compressed leather to keep the guard (in some cases pommel too) in place so it doesn't move around or get loose, thats why the gaurds on old stacked leather knives that arent properly cared for are so loose. The leather dries out and shrinks leaving extra space. (Wont happen with micarta, but a little extra strength never hurts)