Thin Red Liner Glue for Plastic Plates

[TK Steingass]

Fellow Knifemakers:

I recently have been looking for thin red vulcanized liner material suitable for knife scales in about .012" thickness. I read somewhere to try the red plastic plates you get at Target - picnic plates. It's perfect as a replacement - inert, bright color, cheap, available, waterproof, thin, and isn't translucent like G-10 sold by Alpha Supply, which is also darned expensive. Trouble is, I can't get any glue to stick to it.....I rough up the material with 80# orbital on both sides, then tried epoxy, then acraglas, and finally gorilla glue. The plastic lifts off the bone or wood with a minimal amount of pulling with any of these three glues and would be unacceptable when using on a knife.

Any recommendations for a good glue or does anyone have a line (pun intended) on the thin red vulcanized fiber liner material at .012"? I can find the thicker stuff anywhere.

 

[Darrin Sanders]

K&G has it in rust. Tracy @ usaknifemakers has it in brick red.

 

[RJSmith]

I had a hard time finding the thin vulcanized fiber. In fact after seeing it on one of the knifemaker supply places I ordered it only to receive the thick stuff. Taking matters into my own hands i decided to call oliner, the place that makes the stuff and they were not willing to sell me anything less than about $300 worth of it. So, long story short I took some of the thick stuff that i have and attached it to a 3/4" steel sanding block with carpet tape and took it to the disc sander. Voila, instant thin liner material. I was skeptical at first as to whether I could keep the thickness consistent but when I checked it with a micrometer the maximum difference in thickness was only .001"

 

[argel55]

Glue it to your handles material then take it to the mill and have any thickness you want.

 

[RJSmith]

argel55

Glue it to your handles material then take it to the mill and have any thickness you want.

More info please. What tooling did you use to accomplish this?

 

[AcridSaint]

Any end mill or probably even a fly cutter will work for that.

For what it's worth, I don't think the AKS stuff is very expensive. It might add a dollar to the knife cost.

I've never tried paper plates, but I am suspicious as to how well the color stands up to UV exposure.