Working with Fake Marble

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lonepine

Joined
May 7, 2010
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Last spring I bought some fake marble handle scales and I’m now getting around to using it.

Being some sort of plastic compound it cuts, drills, and sands easily. Knowing that if there isn’t a picture, it didn’t happen, here is a picture of the glued up knife. Pretty amazing, huh?!?!? ;-)

Fakemarble858.jpg


Though it is a plastic and is quite soft, it is at the same time brittle. When you drill a hole in it you better have it backed up with a piece of wood or you will probably get a fairly large blow out where the drill exits, as seen in this ¼” lanyard hole.

Fakemarble861.jpg

It also stinks like burning plastic when sanding or drilling it.

Before gluing it up I started roughing it out with a rasp and quickly noticed that I was shattering the material more than doing what rasps normally do. Unfortunately I ended up with a small section on the bottom of the tang where it exposed the flat of the tang. I filled it with epoxy and hoped for the best.

Soooooo… After the glue cured and working a lot more carefully, I shaped the handle using a slow 6x48 belt sander/grinder and careful application of a rasp and coarse file, then I sanded it. The sanding went OK through the 400 grit but when I went to 600 grit I started getting streaks of “stuff” on the handle. Talk about a heart attack! I thought I had managed to put a humungous gouge in the plastic, but it was only on the surface.

Hmmm… What could be causing this??? Clean fresh sandpaper so it wasn’t something left over from something else. I decided that maybe it was a combination of the extra fine grit and the extra fine powder it makes along with the heat of rubbing might be causing the dust to melt. It’s a theory. I took the knife to the kitchen sink and used the 600 grit under cold running water. No streaks of stuff. I went to 1000 grit under running water and a little soap and still no streaks.

This is a picture of the handle as it right now. I intend to put a brass tube in the lanyard hole yet, and I see magic scratches that mysteriously appear after you think you’re done and take a picture of your handiwork.

FakemarbleL871.jpg


I’ve never use this handle material before and I am not satisfied with the finish that I have on it. This picture shows that the surface is not shiny but dull. You can also notice a bubble and see how shiny it CAN get on the inside of the bubble, or on the previous image of the blown out lanyard hole. You can also see where I filled a void with epoxy.

FakemarbleL873.jpg


I suspect the solution is pink scratchless compound on a buffing wheel, except I don’t have a buffer. Is there a way of polishing it by hand? How can I get it to look nice and shiny without a buffing wheel, or is that not possible?

- Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
The buffing wheel might be a bad idea. At least you should have a variable speed tool to venture to use it because of the risk of melting or "burning" the surface.
First of all stay longer with the grade 400 to make sure there would be no scratches or bubles left to "surface" later.
As for polishing - go up to grit 2000 first (available at many auto-part stores) and then you can polish it manually fast and easy - that would be my choice.
 
You can buff it with 0000 steel wool (after you sand it to at least 600 grit,) and polish it with Simichrome, Flitz, Mothers, etc. Use a cloth "shoe shine" style.
If using a buffer, use tripoli compound on a 1725 RPM buffer, or use a VERY light touch on a 3650 RPM.
Buffalo horn would look about the same, but it works and polishes easier. It does stink when grinding it though.
 
Quote: "...and then you can polish it manually fast and easy - that would be my choice."

Polish it with what? I'm assuming I would put something on a cotton rag and briskly rub it on the handle???

- Paul Meske
 
Well, I did end up putting "something" on a rag and rubbing briskly, but that is putting the cart before the horse. And now it's time for the REST of the story...

I stopped at an auto parts store and bought some 2000 grit sand paper and wet sanded (with a little soap) the fake marble material. It looked great while wet, but when it dried it was still dull. At the hardware store I bought a bottle of Flitz polish. It specifies that it is not abrasive and it is for metal and PLASTIC, and set me back $6.50 plus 6.5% sales tax. I wrapped a soft cotton cloth around my index finger rubbed it on the fake marble and wiped it off with a clean part of the rag. I continued doing this until the entire handle was done and now it looks like the picture below.
FakemarbleL905.jpg


This is more like it! I think I could get more shiny somehow but not with the Flitz. None the less, I am satisfied with it as it is, at least for now.

If I had dreams that I had the entire handle evenly sanded and scratch free, the Flitz put me in my place. There were a lot of scratches that "appeared" by magic after polishing the handle.

This material is quite soft and sanding it exposed the tang along the top and toward the back of the handle.

I tried the flitz on some plastic impregnated wood from Jantz and it helped. I tried it on a black (linen I think) micarta handle that I was very displeased with and it greatly improved it but not to the point that I wanted. Paper micarta might work better. I suspect most any plastic/resin based handle material might benefit from a polishing with flitz.

A sincere and BIG thanks to Poez and Bill DeShivs for leading me in the right direction.

- Paul Meske, Wisconsin
 
I don't think it's cultured marble, it sounds and looks more like Corian(solid surface). Cultured marble is resin and marble dust. It's extremely "not shiny" if you break/chip it like you did around the lanyard tube. Solid surface will buff nice and shiny.
 
Some plastics can be flame polished. Obviously something you would want to try on a piece of scrap first. The way you describe the way it works reminds me of acrylic which is a plastic that can be flame polished.
 
Xander,I used some of this recently and came across the same issues you did... You can fill the cracks and holes with CA and it should polish up nicely, even though the CA is clear (They do have Black avail) it should take on the color of the material you are using. you may have to do multiple applications to fill a hole that large.

Looks nice and shiny! Nice job
 
I never called it cultured marble, just fake marble. I don't know WHAT it is but I'm 99% certain that it is not Corian. I got the material at the spring Wisconsin Badger Knife Show from one of the vendors. It looked like it may have been home made. The two pieces looked like they had the imprint of the bottom of a plastic container that was used as a mold for it. I half-way assumed it was what the Jantz catalog calls "Fantasy Marble", but Polyester is just as likely.

Flame polishing, now that sounds interesting. I have scrap pieces I can play with. How does one go about flame polishing a suitable piece of material?

- Paul Meske
 
lonepine said:
I never called it cultured marble, just fake marble. I don't know WHAT it is but I'm 99% certain that it is not Corian. I got the material at the spring Wisconsin Badger Knife Show from one of the vendors. It looked like it may have been home made. The two pieces looked like they had the imprint of the bottom of a plastic container that was used as a mold for it. I half-way assumed it was what the Jantz catalog calls "Fantasy Marble", but Polyester is just as likely.
Click to expand...

Yeah i second that its not corian, ive worked with alot of the stuff and never had it act like what you went through, you got it looking pretty good considering it sounds like it fought you the entire time!
regards
gene
 
lonepine said:
Flame polishing, now that sounds interesting. I have scrap pieces I can play with. How does one go about flame polishing a suitable piece of material?

- Paul Meske
Click to expand...

I have use a propane torch (MAP gas works better) to flame polish acrylic. I think an oxy acetylene torch works good, but an HHO torch is said to be the best. Not really that hard to do, you just move the flame over the surface (at the correct pace) which melts the surface creating a smooth shiny finish. From what I gather and have experienced, the hotter the flame the better it works. You can find videos on YouTube of people doing it.
 
IVANKERLEY said:
...it sounds like it fought you the entire time!
regards
gene[/QUOTE

Gene,
Not really. As I said it is quite easy to work and compared to sanding micarta or a dense hard exotic wood it was a dream. So easy I over sanded. I'm not crying about it because it was the first time I used it and, being ever the pessimist, it came out a lot better than I expected. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get it shiny with just sandpaper and I was pretty sure that the solution would be found on the forum.

- Paul Meske
Click to expand...
 
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