- Joined
- Jan 15, 2006
- Messages
- 758
For the longer twisted piece of tan/black denim, Cliff twisted it by hand while I tied a string around it to hold it together. We decided to press this in a mill vice. We sprayed the vise with WD-40 to prevent any overflow epoxy from sticking to it. We put the saturated and tied bundle of material in a plastic freezer bag and put it in the vise.
Sorry, I couldn't take pictures of the twisting and tying operation as all of our epoxy covered hands were busy at the time.
Next lesson learned: When we tightened the vise, the bundle of material wanted to squeeze out the top of the vise. We fixed this problem by clamping another piece of plywood on top.
Everything pressed and setting up.
We were in no particular hurry so we let the pressed micarta set and dry for 4 days before removing it from the presses.
When we removed the materials we found that the flat pieces had stuck to the plywood but it was easily pried off. Some of the wax paper also stuck but we assumed we would grind off the top layers anyway.
We were now anxious to see what we made so we cut off a piece from the end of the thicker stack of faded blue jean material and gave it a quick sanding and polishing.
After sanding
After a quick buffing
This looks promising.
Next we removed the twisted piece of tan/black micarta from the mill press.
It was easily removed from the freezer bag and this seems to be a much better method than using wax paper. It also kept the vise clean.
Next lesson learned: We should not have allowed knots in the string to be positioned along the flat surface of the micarta. We will have to grind fairly deep to remove the string. Next time we will wrap the string so that any knots are at the ends which will be cut off anyway.
We cut a piece from the end to see what we had made.
We sanded and polished the cut cut of piece.
I will post pictures of the finished micarta after we have installed it on some knives so check back soon.
Lessons Learned:
This is a two-man operation. It really took both of us to make this work as you have a short working time before the epoxy starts to set.
Soaking the layers of material in a pan and then squeezing out the excess and air bubbles works much better and more efficiently than trying to pour the epoxy directly onto the material.
Plastic freezer bags work much better than wax paper for wrapping the wet micarta.
If tying up a twisted stack of material, make sure any knots in the string are at the ends where they will be cut off.
The mill press worked great for a long narrow piece like would be used for a one-piece handle.
This is an expensive process. Using the West Systems epoxy we invested $68.00 in a quart of epoxy and the pumps. The pumps are supposed to be reusable and I'm sure we can get a better epoxy price by buying in larger quantities but it is still expensive. Add to that 10 man-hours to make enough micarta to make 5-6 knife handles.
Our conclusion is if you want common micarta, it is not cost efficient to make it yourself. You can buy large pieces for about $25 or a pair of handle slabs for around $12 from several sources. Considering the time and expense we encountered with making it, buying it makes more sense. The exception of course is if you want to make something unique that is not readily available elsewhere such as blue jean micarta or a unique twist pattern.
I know there is less expensive epoxy and polyester resins available and they are often used in making micarta. Since this was our first experience in making micarta, we cannot compare products. We may try using some other resins in the future to compare. I can say the micarta we made with the West Systems epoxy looks great and appears to be extremely tough. It dried crystal clear and we were impressed with how tough it was when we beat the heck out of a scrap piece with a hammer. It cuts, sands, and polishes very well.
Sorry, I couldn't take pictures of the twisting and tying operation as all of our epoxy covered hands were busy at the time.
Next lesson learned: When we tightened the vise, the bundle of material wanted to squeeze out the top of the vise. We fixed this problem by clamping another piece of plywood on top.
Everything pressed and setting up.
We were in no particular hurry so we let the pressed micarta set and dry for 4 days before removing it from the presses.
When we removed the materials we found that the flat pieces had stuck to the plywood but it was easily pried off. Some of the wax paper also stuck but we assumed we would grind off the top layers anyway.
We were now anxious to see what we made so we cut off a piece from the end of the thicker stack of faded blue jean material and gave it a quick sanding and polishing.
After sanding
After a quick buffing
This looks promising.
Next we removed the twisted piece of tan/black micarta from the mill press.
It was easily removed from the freezer bag and this seems to be a much better method than using wax paper. It also kept the vise clean.
Next lesson learned: We should not have allowed knots in the string to be positioned along the flat surface of the micarta. We will have to grind fairly deep to remove the string. Next time we will wrap the string so that any knots are at the ends which will be cut off anyway.
We cut a piece from the end to see what we had made.
We sanded and polished the cut cut of piece.
I will post pictures of the finished micarta after we have installed it on some knives so check back soon.
Lessons Learned:
This is a two-man operation. It really took both of us to make this work as you have a short working time before the epoxy starts to set.
Soaking the layers of material in a pan and then squeezing out the excess and air bubbles works much better and more efficiently than trying to pour the epoxy directly onto the material.
Plastic freezer bags work much better than wax paper for wrapping the wet micarta.
If tying up a twisted stack of material, make sure any knots in the string are at the ends where they will be cut off.
The mill press worked great for a long narrow piece like would be used for a one-piece handle.
This is an expensive process. Using the West Systems epoxy we invested $68.00 in a quart of epoxy and the pumps. The pumps are supposed to be reusable and I'm sure we can get a better epoxy price by buying in larger quantities but it is still expensive. Add to that 10 man-hours to make enough micarta to make 5-6 knife handles.
Our conclusion is if you want common micarta, it is not cost efficient to make it yourself. You can buy large pieces for about $25 or a pair of handle slabs for around $12 from several sources. Considering the time and expense we encountered with making it, buying it makes more sense. The exception of course is if you want to make something unique that is not readily available elsewhere such as blue jean micarta or a unique twist pattern.
I know there is less expensive epoxy and polyester resins available and they are often used in making micarta. Since this was our first experience in making micarta, we cannot compare products. We may try using some other resins in the future to compare. I can say the micarta we made with the West Systems epoxy looks great and appears to be extremely tough. It dried crystal clear and we were impressed with how tough it was when we beat the heck out of a scrap piece with a hammer. It cuts, sands, and polishes very well.
