The Amateur Crafter: Get A Grip!

Been a bit under the weather lately, most likely from either the recent flu shot or from some of the students showing up sick at school. So, not much shop work going on this week except for just drilling some holes.

But it occurred to me from posting my last article that it might be a good idea to inform readers of the materials, terms, etc. I’m using in my knife making particularly if some of the readers don’t have any experience with knife making or collecting. So I thought that I’d write a basic article on that. 

Micarta. Micarta is actually a brand name that’s now being used as a term to describe layered epoxy resin block. The layering comes from laying materials such as paper, canvas, linen, or even denim in strips with a coating of epoxy resin in between each layer. The material used really isn’t too important, and it can be quite flimsy. 

But what matters is that the material with the epoxy in between is pressed together and allowed to stay like that while the resin is hardening. This creates a very strong but easily worked block suitable for handle (scale) material. Check out some of the photos retrieved from various knife maker supply websites or other knife maker web galleries. 

The following micarta photos were retrieved from canmanstan.com.

 
 
 
 Black Paper Micarta
 
 

 

Black Linen Micarta

Various Canvas Micarta. Retrieved from fowlweathercustomcalls.com.

Denim Micarta. Photo retrieved from fendleyknives.com.

From the photos, one can see the various textures and patterns left from grinding away the micarta. The micarta is what I’ve used so far on my knives, simply because it was provided for me as part of the knife making courses. Micarta can be made at home, but the process is fairly messy and unless one is purchasing materials in bulk, not very cost effective either. It’s simply cheaper and easier to purchase micarta rather than to make it. But I’ve seen a lot of hobbyist/amateur videos online to know that some people just want to make their own, which I can understand. I’ve no plans to try this out, but who knows? Other types of handle material include bone, G10, wood, or plastics such as synthetic shell material. 

G10 is a fiberglass laminate similar in construction to micarta. Each fiberglass layer has a resin layer and the entire material is compressed and baked, thus hardening the material so it can be quite a burden on cutting tools. But like micarta, it is very lightweight and durable. This is usually ideal for more tactical purpose tools and G10 can be “textured” to provide more gripping surfaces. Photo retrieved from usaknifemaker.com.

When working with either G10 or micarta (and maybe carbon fiber as well) it’s important that a dust mask is used to help prevent the dust and fibers from entering the lungs. This can cause serious health risks both short and long term. And the dust filters must be for particulates, not vapors.

Of all of the synthetic handle materials available, one type that will add a bit more appeal to a blade is carbon fiber. It’s made of small strands of carbon weaved tightly together to form a pattern. The main appeal to this material is its ability to reflect light, making the pattern more visible. Making carbon fiber is a labor-intensive process and usually costs more to purchase, adding more costs to a blade. Retrieved from canmanstan.com

Bone handle photo retrieved from knives.net.

Bone can turn nearly any blade into a gentlemen’s knife, an antique-looking skinner, or even a work of art. I’ve not worked with bone before but from what I can tell most types of bone can either polish well or remain in a natural state. 

Wood handled stone inlay knife retrieved from macsindianjewelry.com.

Wood is a readily available source for scale materials but it’s important to make sure that the scales are stabilized. And further embellishment such as this stone inlay can add much more appeal to the knife.

And of course another major appeal to a knife with wooden scales are the burl scales. A burl is a section of a tree where the grain pattern has grown in an irregular shape. This can be caused by an injury earlier in the tree’s life, a virus or fungus, or an insect infestation. The burl is very dense and resistant to splitting. The result is often highly prized by artists, woodworkers, furniture makers, and knife makers. This adds a considerable cost to the knife as acquiring burl material isn’t easy. Burls (large enough to work with) can be difficult to harvest and its uncommon appearance adds more expense to gathering it. 

Photo retrieved from summersknives.com.

And finally a huge “ooohhh” and “aaahhh” effect one can create for a knife would be a bit of scrimshaw. Technically, this is just bone but I listed this as a separate category because it's bone (or ivory) that's been engraved and had the engraving darkened with pigment. In my opinion very little can outshine a good set of scrimshaw scales, except perhaps polished stone. Check out this knife with a bit of scrimshaw on the handle!

Retrieved from katherineplumer.com,



I would very much love to learn how to create knives with burl scales or embellish them with a bit of stone work or scrimshaw. But I'll have to set aside time to learn how to do that. For now, I think that once my first sets of blades return from heat treat that I’ll stick to G10 or micarta. The material is quick and easy and readily available at a good price.

The Amateur Crafter: Project 3.0 - Such a Grind

Well the profile of the blades is done. I've also put these to the 4 x 36 belt sander to clean up the sides. So before I start to grind away the primary bevel, I'll need to drill out any holes I need for mounting pins and also any holes that I want to put into the handle to lighten its weight. This may be a critical step in the process but I don't know how well to try and balance the blade. I suspect that with the deep finger choil area that the blade will balance well at that point, regardless of how much material is left on handle.

This little guy is a 2 x 31 hand-held belt sander.

This is how I held the 2 x 31 belt sander. Note the zip-tie on the handle, which is used to keep the trigger button engaged - forcing the sander to remain on constantly.

This seems like it may be dangerous. But keep in mind that this machine has very little power and runs the belts much slower than my bench sander. This means that to finish the choils would require a lot more time to complete than first thought. But it still went much quicker than by hand. Even accidentally bumping my hand/fingers into the belt as it is running did nothing to injure me. From this photo one can also see a bit of water still on the blade to keep it cool.

From the photo, one can see that the choils have been cleaned up to size and have a good finish.

Next is a part of the knifemaking operation that I was experimenting with different methods. The first method I actually started to draw file each knife with a good Nicholson mill file. But I thought that maybe using a 4 x 36 belt sander would grind the sides quicker, even if the finish wasn't that great, I could always clean that up myself.

Cleaning up the sides of the blades. Originally, I used painter's tape and fashioned a sort of "handle" to hold onto while the blade is engaged with the belt sander, similar to how I held the piece in the photo. This work piece is for a modification on the Grizzly. 

But this didn't provide a firm grip of the work piece against the belt sander. So I changed to a heavy-duty magnet. This works okay but the magnet is so strong that it sometimes sticks to the platen of the belt sander. As a rule of thumb, the nicer the finish going into heat treat, the easier it is to reproduce that finish once heat treating is completed. Here in this photo I've used painter's tape to cover the magnet. This helps in cleaning up the shavings removed from the metal.

While this may not seem that important, it is a crucial point in the process. In order to ensure that my holes are drilled perpendicular, and to ensure that each blade grind is even on both sides, each side of the blade must be true flat and parallel to the other side. Without true flatness and parallelism, the blade grind my come out uneven.

The Klutch 4 x 36 belt sander will get me in the ball park as far as removing high spots and providing a good starting point for truing up each side but it won't provide the accuracy I'm looking for. This could be the construction of the belt sander (cheaply made) or it may have to do with the magnet I was using. In any case, I finally had to go back to a manual method and simply complete each finished side by hand.

I decided to make a couple of flat surfaces for sanding by hand, I'll call them sanding tables. I purchased 2 x 2 x 36 inch square block and a 1/2 x 6 x 48 flat block. Each piece is oak and it is milled flat (supposedly). It should be noted that this is not the bulk lumber one can purchase for building, outdoor work, etc. I cut the 2 x 2 piece into thirds and I cut 2 of the 1/2 x 6 into 14 inch lengths. Then I took simple wood glue and clamped the pieces together. The result provided me with a portable surface that I could stick a bit of sandpaper to with spray adhesive. I can also clamp this sanding table into my bench vise, very handy.

Using the 60 grit sandpaper and my strong magnet, I can now grind each blade side true flat and parallel to the other side. This part of the process can be labor-intensive and time-consuming depending on how much sanding is needed to clean up a side flat. Because I used my 4 x 36 belt sander first, each blade finished up fairly quickly, but there were two blades that took nearly 20 minutes of sanding to clean up.

From the photo, one might be able to see the "divot" in the middle of the blade. I'm not too concerned for any low spots along the handle unless it's at the edge. The handle will receive scales to cover it anyway. Here I'm using 60 grit sandpaper glued to one of my sanding tables I made.

Here I've used a large permanent marker on part of the blade to identify the low spots. After a bit more sanding, part of the low spot is still visible because it's been stained by the permanent marker. This gives me a very helpful visual reference to go by when trying to determine if I've clean up any low spots.


I've also needed to make a modification to the Grizzly. The platen that the Grizzly came with had to be adjusted. Note the following photo.

Retrieved from mickleyknives.com


















The flat plate that sits vertical between the two wheels is called the platen. A platen is a flat section of a sander where the belt will ride upon. The flat section provides a backing to allow a technician to press a work piece into the belt as it's running - thus grinding away material. The original platen on the Grizzly had a graphite imbued tape, almost like double-sided duct tape pressed on the platen. This had to be removed before I could put any grind on the knives.

The platen after a good bit of time on a belt sander at the school where I work. It has a motor with much more horsepower than my consumer grade belt sander.

I decided to try and use a bit of ceramic tile for a platen. I've seen this done before on other machines and some folks have even made videos and posted them on Youtube for demonstration. The only problem was I didn't know how I was going to cut it. I couldn't get the exact size I needed to attach to the platen, so having it cut with any precision at the hardware store was unlikely.

At first, I tried a method offered by Dremmel. This is an attachment that will fit most Dremmels and it was to provide a way to use a small routing bit to cut away sections of the ceramic. And, it's pretty cheap.

Fairly simple setup.










I clamped the tile to a piece of 2 x 4 left over from making my chop saw table.

This is how far the bit made it into the tile before becoming so dull that it wouldn't cut anymore. Oh well. The cheapest method isn't always the best method - in this case it wasn't even a method because it didn't work.

I wasn't planning on purchasing a wet cutting tile saw just yet. I would've needed one eventually to help rough cut G10 material. G10 is a glass epoxy laminate. Basically, take plastic, epoxy resin, and layer each material with glass thrown in, and you've got G10. This material is usually found on terminal boards, electrical equipment, and induction heating machines. Because it's very durable and stable, and because it's available in a variety of colors, it's recently gained popularity among knifemakers as handle scale material. But I've worked with G10 as a machinist and it's not easy to machine. It will quickly dull high-speed-steel tools and to machine it means wearing a dust mask if no coolant is used. Instead of removing material in large chips or shavings, it machines off in a fine dust similar to talcum powder. But, no tile means further delays in my current project, and I've had enough of those already and they're pissing me off.

 It doesn't produce the straightest cut, but it does the job well. I had to purchase rubber coated gloves because the water makes this material very slippery to handle.

I needed to cut a small steel support piece for the tile to rest on.

The finished modified platen, after much swearing and a lot of effort put into cleaning up the excess JB Weld that I went WAY OVERBOARD in using.

The platen after some use. I see no noticeable wear. The ceramic tile seems to be virtually immune to heat damage - with the gloss being the exception.

The shop after a good bit of work.

This has been a pretty busy week in the shop mainly because I've been off work for fall break. The blade sides are now thankfully true flat and parallel. I've also purchased some angle iron as I intend to make a fixture that will allow me to reproduce a flat grind for each blade. After all of this effort, I'm glad I'm making progress again. That will be the topic of my next article. I've got a good idea on how I want it to work and a rough design idea in my head. We'll see how it works!