That's a gorgeous knife! Despite being a member of bladeforums, I can count my fixed blades on less than one hand, and the only folder I use much is my leatherman. I'd love to win something as awesome as this blade. I'm not sure how W&SS-y this is, but it's about a firesteel, so why not:
Meet an old pair of my jeans. They ripped really badly at the knee, and I'm not the type to make shorts, so I had something else in mind.
Using a pair of tiles as a guide, I cut 20 rectangles of denim using an X-acto blade:
They were quite wrinkly, as the pants lived crumpled up in a drawer, so I busted out the iron:
Behold my setup! (junk pushed to periphery of workspace so I could actually see the bench)
If you try this, read the ingredients on the polyester resin (If using epoxy, you should be fine). Most of the Bondo I found had silica filler, which would make it opaque and thicker. This was a clear liquid. I'd read elsewhere that polyester resin won't stick to aluminum, so I covered two boards in aluminum foil. The plastic cup for measuring turned out to be a bad idea, since it was polystyrene. The styrene in the bondo slowly dissolved it until it fell apart.
The curing reaction is controlled by the temperature and amount of catalyst added. Unlike epoxy resins (where the hardener is a necessary reactant), the reaction in a polyester resin will finish even with only a trace of catalyst added, just much slower. The container suggests 12 drops per ounce of catalyst. I think that I started with less than half that for the first batch of mixed resin and less than a quarter for the second batch. Both were too much in 80F weather and the resin started curing too early. As a result, my home made "micarta" has some small pockets of resin and some small bubbles (which hopefully would have otherwise been wrung out by the clamps).
Each piece of fabric was soaked in the mixed resin, the excess was wiped off, and it was laid down on the foil. This is a lot messier and harder than it sounds. I would have liked some spare arms and a tool for wiping the excess resin off.
After everything was soaked and stacked, I placed the second foil wrapped board on top and brought out the clamps. I left it to cure overnight.
The final product looked like this (sorry about the flash):
I squared off the block with a circular saw and cut out a small block appropriate for a firesteel handle (3/8" mischmetal blank from goinggear). I drilled a hole for the firesteel itself (plus a small lanyard hole), then shaped the block using a bench grinder, files, and sandpaper. I sanded down to 600 grit with wet-or-dry sandpaper before securing the firesteel into its handle.
Here's the finished product, dangling from some cattail cordage that I whipped up for the photo:
[/IMG]
[/IMG]
)
. Did you use stainless bicycle spokes? Being a bike mechanic I have access to them by the handfull