My first attempt at "pimping" micarta scales

The Logical One

The Logical One

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May 31, 2011
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So I had this knife up for sale and nobody wanted it, so I decided to keep it and have a little fun with it on a Friday night since I'm flued up and can't go anywhere.

When I first got it I dyed the handles black:

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I have a Barry H Sebenza and I've always loved the textured scales, and thanks to BryFry with his "how to" Junglas thread I decided to give it a shot:

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It's nowhere near good, I definitely need a lot more practice. As you guys can see there seems to be some burn/charred marks from the high amount of heat generated from the grinding. For those who has done this before if you can chime in and give me some pointers as to how to avoid that I would really appreciate it.
 
Hey, that looks pretty dang good to me!

If you are using a dremel and want to avoid burning, try using medium speed, get the most coarse sanding drums you can find, and start with a fresh sanding drum. Using one of those rubber sanding belt cleaner sticks helps too. And don't use much pressure when grinding, just hold it steady and let the dremel do the work.

Finish up by hand sanding with paper. I use anywhere from 100 grit to 320, depending on how smooth you want it.

Yours still looks plenty good though! :)
 
The burning seems to add a certain 'broken in' character to those scales, as if they've already seen some worthy challenges. I think it fits, and it looks good. :thumbup:
 
+1 to going slower. No need to burn the material at all when you go slow.

Have a plan. If needed, ake the handls off trave the outline on a sheet of paper a few times and sketch out what you want the texture to look like.

Practice on wood. Scrap lumber is cheap and can found at any home improvement store. As for 2x4 or 1x2 scraps. They might give them to you or charge you a couple bucks max. This will help with your technique.

Use a set of files, not just the Dremel. It is really hard to burn material when using a file. This teaches you how much material can be removed with specific pressure.

Goog start though.
 
That looks really good :-) it looks functional, too. Call me crazy, but I think the slight burn adds a nice touch.
 
Thanks guys, I ended up dying the scales a light brown color because the two slabs of micarta aren't quite the same color (one sides lighter than the other). It was even more obvious after I grounded the scales.

I'll definitely take the advice of using a slower speed next time to avoid burning the scales. I was on max speed and using quite a bit of pressure. Next time I'll probably try it on a junglas! :D
 
You may want to file finish them to have them look neater. Of course that's only my opinion, as I've never had good luck doing intricate work with a dremel.
 
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