M14 Forum

Earthquake · February 14th, 2012, 10:51 PM

Has any body made there own Micarta material for making grips on knives?
I have some linen material that I am going to try and see how hard it is, I am going to dye it black and green and alternate colors in each stack. I need to find out what kind of resin to use, I may try using fiberglass resin at first because I can get it fairly cheap. I am going to use two 1/2" aluminum plates with a couple sheets of wax paper on them, build up the resin coated linen in to stacks of 20-25 and put the plates in my hydraulic press and let it set over night and see how it works.

Casey

Dave P · February 15th, 2012, 06:54 AM

Let us know how it goes. I thought about doing that for knife handles.

Should be able to use any cloth - I think old blue jeans would be neat. Just be sure to get the epoxy squeezed into the cloth before you build the stack-up.

nSquid · February 15th, 2012, 08:19 AM

I believe industrial micarta is cured in a press under a lot of pressure. YMMV.

nicholst55 · February 24th, 2012, 10:26 PM

I recently saw a write-up where a guy was making his own Micarta, but I don't remember where it was - either Cast Boolits or the Ruger Forum, perhaps. It looked like a lot of work, but he felt it was worthwhile.

Earthquake · February 25th, 2012, 03:50 PM

I got my fabric for my first try, it going to be a grey/tan lay up that I'm going to use to make a set of grips for one of my 1911's. there a couple of videos online about making it your self, one guy laid up his strips and twisted them and lock them in a milling machine vice, the finished knife handle was very nice looking.

Casey