mircata finishing

[Barry Clodfelter]

I picked up a couple pairs of black denim mircata scales a while back and just got around this weekend to putting them on a pair of matching blades. What do you guys use as a finish for them once all the sanding is done? Just polish with white or pink compound? Or would something like tung oil be better?

 

[Fletch Helical]

Since it's a fairly hard resin I don't think tung oil will really penetrate it very well, if at all. Stacy from here sent me some 3M polish cloths that go up to 8000 grit and that's what I used to finish this handle. It has a glassy finish as it is (hard to tell from my camera pics).

 

[Hesparus]

I finish fabric-based micarta in a couple of ways, depending on intended function. For pretty knives, I sand up to 600, then buff with green rouge. For hard use knives, I sand to 320 and leave it.
I also don't recommend oil. I consider a function of fabric-based micarta to be the fact that the exposed fibers absorb water when wet (without deforming the handle), making it grippy. I suspect that oil would prevent this from happening.

- Chris

 

[308sniper]

Is wht you have micarta or mycarta

Micarta I like to sand to 220 then blast with AO

Mycarta I like to buff with white compound.

Her is some of my mycarta.

 

[Barry Clodfelter]

I'm not sure I can make a pretty knive Chris! These are hunting/skinning knives so a grippy grip would be a good thing. I have never worked with micarta before and it was jet black before I started sanding and now it is more of a dark gray or faded black so I thought there was something I was missing to bring back the dark black appearance.

Sniper, I thought mycarta was just a misspelling of micarta. I once worked for a company that changed its name to Mynd (a computer software company) before it was bought by another company. A lot of us who were around then usually still type "mynd" for "mind" in emails and such. So I thought maybe mycarta was something like that.

 

[308sniper]

Mycarta is the home made version of micarta, two different animals made entirely different.

By the way you are describing yours, it sounds like you have mycarta. Which does tend to get lighter when you start working it and requires more sanding, progressively finer, to get it back to that original deep black.

 

[Barry Clodfelter]

I'm pretty sure it is micarta. I bought it from Tracy at USA Knife Makers supply.

So I guess it really doesn't need a finish on it. Maybe just a quick buff.

 

[308sniper]

If you got it from Tracy it is most likely micarta.
I didn't know he had black denim, only black canvas.