Scored what might be good handle material....

jonnymac44

jonnymac44

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Sep 27, 2007
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The tavern that I run is a small local place, most often filled with blue collar guys who work in the trades. Today I scored two very nice pieces of material from a pipeline welder and and an electrician, both of whom are regulars and good buddies of mine:thumbup:

I talk with a lot of these guys about knives and I've discovered that knife supply companies aren't the only places to find things that we can use......

The pipe welder brought me in a very nice sheet of a reddish brown canvas micarta. They use it for building welding hoods. This piece is about 2 feet wide by 3 1/2 feet tall and is 1/16" thick. It'll be enough to make a whole bunch of nice thick liners. I'm thinking with black or OD canvas slabs:thumbup:

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The other guy, the electrician works in a local refinery and says the use micarta all the time their large electrical boxes. He grabbed me this sheet. At first glance I thought what the heck is this? It looked more like a 1/4" thick version of the fiberglass corrugated panels used for overhangs on houses or sheds, you know the old wavy green and yellow ones? I took it home and cut a slab off to test it out. Feels a bit lighter than micarta, but still seems really tough. I banged on it and tried to break it on the edge of the work bench, and it seems fine. Rather than layers of fabric it's full of what seem to be fiberglass threads like in the panels I mentioned. When sanded it easily goes smooth and the thread remnants leave kind of a cool pattern. It's a very light beige color, but I think with some nice liners to make it pop it could be a good handle material, like red, black, blue....

What do you guys think?

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Almost looks like a thick slab of chopped fiberglass. Might work for handle material but it had better be sanded pretty smooth with none of those glass fibers sticking out. Could hurt a bit.
 
I used to work in the construction trades. There were a couple of big commercial jobs where I would constantly be scoring cool stuff. The sheer amount of wire that the electricians threw out, all the copper trim from the flashing guys, tools that would start to smoke and get thrown out, monster scrap steel, the waste is just incredible and if you aren't careful you end up with way too much salvage in your pile at home. Cool stuff. I don't know what I'd do with that "micarta," it looks a bit gnarly.
 
Salem Straub said:
I used to work in the construction trades. There were a couple of big commercial jobs where I would constantly be scoring cool stuff. The sheer amount of wire that the electricians threw out, all the copper trim from the flashing guys, tools that would start to smoke and get thrown out, monster scrap steel, the waste is just incredible and if you aren't careful you end up with way too much salvage in your pile at home. Cool stuff. I don't know what I'd do with that "micarta," it looks a bit gnarly.
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LOL, I hear ya Salem:D With a piece this big though, I'll at least have to finish a set of scales to completion to see how they turn out. This is too much material to just throw out without knowing the potential!

The big thin sheet of the brown canvas, on the other hand, is a very good score:thumbup: I've got all kinds of ideas for that one.
 
If that second piece is fiberglass it will degrade over time and the fiberglass will make nasty slivers. Leave a piece outside in the sun for a month or so and see if it changes.
 
A coworker in a cabinet shop once told me that if a fiberglass component has visible fibers, it generally is not for use out in the open; it's more for structural uses. If anything catches the surface and drags up some of that strand, and you rub against it somehow, it can make for nasty tweezer time under a lighted magnifier. (Apparently, he spoke from experience.)

I'd keep it, though - sooner or later you'll come up with a good idea for it.

Of course, you can sell strips of it as backscratchers to them non-tippin' drunks at the hootch house you work at. :D

~Chris
 
I can't tell if the Red Orange piece is made of Canvas or not, but the second piece is definitely loose fiberglass
 
That fiberglass looks like the stuff my Granddad covered his pickup storage box with. It will definitely weather and start to fray, even if only on the microscopic level so-to-speak.

I forsee the owner of the knife using it, then rubbing his face or something and wondering what he walked into that burns like everything. I put my arm on top of Granddad's box on day while riding in the back and picked up a bunch of slivers is how I know.
 
That chopped glass stuff might not be good for knives, but it would be great for knife templates and jig building! Great score all around.
 
VaughnT said:
That chopped glass stuff might not be good for knives, but it would be great for knife templates and jig building! Great score all around.
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There's an idea:thumbup: I worked on it some more last night and what everybody says here seems to be pretty much on the mark. I don't think handles are a good option for that piece.

The thinner dark sheet on the other hand, is definitely the same stuff we use in knife making. That's the piece that I was really happy about:)
 
sykes3170 said:
If that second piece is fiberglass it will degrade over time and the fiberglass will make nasty slivers. Leave a piece outside in the sun for a month or so and see if it changes.
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I think so too. You could shape it then gel coat (just some resin and hardener) it to get around that if you wanted. I think a UV ray blocker can be mixed in or is mixed in with some resins used in gelcoating.


The brown piece looks like a nice score, cool looking stuff.
 
Could you ask your pipe-welder friend where he gets that micarta and if it comes in other colors? You're a lucky guy with some pretty nice friends!

LonePine
AKA Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
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