Making micarta knife handles

[44minimum]

Ever done it? I watched lots of videos today at you tube and instead of fiberglass resin one guy was using a glue that he called E600. That's all that he said and I was wondering exactly what it was. Any ideas? Any of you ever made micarta handles? I think I would like to make some using black, white and red cloth.

[Tom-ADC]

Guy on another board made some from old Levis came out pretty good. Not something I'd do only because the price isn't out of sight for micarta.

[docone31]

Micarta is made with epoxy.
You will get best results using a 24hr epoxy. Once hard, it is actually easy to work with.
You will also need to either vaccum out the bubbles, or press them out.

[nicholst55]

E600 is a 3M product; run a Google search and you'll get many pages of results.

[cuzinbruce]

Hi,
Are you going to make the micarta? What I used was bought as a solid sheet, ivory colored. Cut and shape it, then attach to the knife handle with epoxy or rivets.
Bruce

[44minimum]

3m huh? Thanks for the info. Yeah, I can't find any like I want so I'm going to try to make some. It looks simple enough. Put stuff down, put goop on top, repeat, repeat. Then clamp it all together and squeeze. Either way, it will be interesting.

Now, how about making a knife from a skill saw blade? Any idea how I would heat treat that sucker properly after I got it cut, shaped and sharpened?

[Tom-ADC]

Problem with saw blades most new blades are soft with carbide teeth glued on.
Try NJ steel for blade material. better to know what steeel you are working with unlike the saw blade.
http://njsteelbaron.com/

[JIMinPHX]

I made some Micarta handles for a heat sealing machine about 10 or 15 years ago. They came out pretty good. I machined them to fit & mounted them with screws. I didn't use any adhesive.

It was my understanding at the time, that Micarta was a form of pressed flax, but I never did any in depth research on it. I believe that I bought my material as bar stock. It handled kind of like a hard plastic, but was more abrasive on the tooling. I think that I ended up using carbide tooling on it, but it was a while back & it was just a few small pieces on a big machine, so it's not that fresh in my memory.

[JIMinPHX]

Now, how about making a knife from a skill saw blade? Any idea how I would heat treat that sucker properly after I got it cut, shaped and sharpened?

I've made machetes & some smaller knives from old Lennex bi-metal reciprocating saw blades. I just ground them as they were & relied on the preexisting heat treating. Basically, I ground them back just below the root of the saw teeth, but not back far enough to get past the hardened area of the blade. I was pretty happy with the results. The blades were pretty flexible & would take a good edge.

If you want blades like that to use as raw material, you need to find a machine shop with an old reciprocating saw that is big enough to cut large steel stock. The blades that I was starting with were about 2 feet long & probably about 2" wide. Most machine shops will be happy to get a buck or two a piece for worn out blades. The scrap value on them isn't that high.

[W.R.Buchanan]

44min: look on your other post the knife I show has "Black Paper Micarta" handles.

They are glued on to the blade with Devcon 2 ton epoxy. But you must also have cross pins. The epoxy holds the material in tension and the pins hold the material in shear. If you drop the knife and it hits on the edge of the handle, without pins, it will just pop right off. With the pins it's onthere for good.

Micarta is Phenolic laminate. It was originally created by Westinghouse to be used as electrical insulation blocks in their big generators. Others found many uses for it.

There is essentially 4 types of phenolic material, there is paper, linen, canvas, and wood vernier. All are saturated with phenolic resin and then compressed and heated. When cured the material is machinable with normal tools, and very strong.

I have used the Black paper and Ivory paper materials extensively in knife making. I have also used the linen and canvas materials and they work very well for utility knives , Machetes and other hard use tools. The wood vernier material is called Pakkawood as is used alot in knife making . All of these products are readily available from any knife making supply company.

Phenolic resin is just a different style of resin, like surf board resin, which is poly-ester based. Phenolic resin is based on Phenol instead and has a higher heat absorbtion property which makes it desirable for industrial uses.

Randy

[Little Doc]

google Jantz Supply www.knifemaking.com lotsa good stuff.

[44minimum]

Thanks guys. I'm going to practice on some saw blades and files and see how it goes then I'm planning on sending off an order to jantz for some good steel and mosaic pins. Those are pretty neat.