Off gassing smell in very new case sodbuster jr with burlap laminate

[Carter Tazio Schonwald]

Hey everyone:
I received a case sodbuster jr with burlap dayglow scales and screw together construction today. It’s lovely!

But it stinks in the way that new furniture stinks. I assume that’s unreacted formaldehyde slowly evaporating or something? Is this an indicator that the micarta or g10 pieces are not quite as cured as is ideal or merely that they are really really fresh? This is my first time experiencing this sort of stank with micarta scales. Though I think it’s only my second USA made folder with micarta. I do really enjoy micarta generally, but this resin smell really surprised me.

 

[sodak]

I have had similar off gassing from a maker that had a strong sulphur smell (think gear oil), and I had to put it in my garage for a month or two, then it was fine. I've not heard of this from micarta before.

 

[Carter Tazio Schonwald]

Yeah it’s very strange! My theory is that either the resin batch was slightly off but still working or the timing on the heat press for curing was incorrect.

There’s 1-3 other tiny details I’ve only noticed because of my moderately obsessive interest in metallurgy and manufacturing that make me believe that there were some manufacturing process hiccups. Like there’s a tiny rectangular patch on each side of the blade that you can barely even see that make me think that a work holding jig after stone washing wasn’t as snug as it should be so it smoothed out the stone wash an infinitesimal amount on those spots from a teeny bit of vibration

 

[Carter Tazio Schonwald]

I have had similar off gassing from a maker that had a strong sulphur smell (think gear oil), and I had to put it in my garage for a month or two, then it was fine. I've not heard of this from micarta before.

Sulfure smell sounds terrible. Also that sort of contamination can really mess up the curing chemistry for some stuff, or at least platinum cure silicones