Need help with pommel material

J

J.McDonald Knives

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I'm wanting to make a pommel that is about 1.25" diameter and 1/2" thick but need to make it a bright or florescent orange and it needs to be able to float. Handle will be from 1.25"x1/2" Grade A (CG1) cork and this knife needs to float and pommel is to be able to find it at night while out bowfishing on the water. Any ideas would be helpful. I've been racking my brain with this knife idea for years. Also took forever to find the cork disks without holes in them.
 
My wild thought is to start with some hunter orange G10 - easy to find in 3/8" thick -- if you have to have it 1/2", then maybe glue up a couple of 1/4" thick disks of it. Then hollow the handle side of the G10 out until it's a shell no more than about 1/8" thick and stuff with cork maybe, or possibly some of that spray in foam, if you can find a waterproof version.

-- Dwight
 
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Thats a pretty good idea, not sure how I will hollow it out unless I use a dremel but I'm still working with basic low buck tools.
 
IIRC, there are a couple of guys that make up some of their own florescent/glow in the dark "mycarta", perhaps not glass fiber based and not such a sweat to work with. Can't think of their names at the moment though. You might check with Gary at http://www.fibermascus.com/ to see if he's got something.

Or maybe make your own, sorta -- take some hunter orange cloth and some good epoxy and a core of cork and wrap it in layers until you have plenty of extra thickness to allow you to shape it back down neatly into a pommel. It's kinda half-a$$ed, but it shouldn't cost much to experiment with it to see if it looks and works well enough.
 
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Well I think you could make a tube knife from thin walled pipe screw a cap on the end like a survival knife. You could store things inside the tube and im quite sure if the tube is thin enough it will float. Same as a floating flashlight.
 
I plan to use cork for the handle. The pommel just needs to be something I can use to cover the nut on the tang but needs to have a bright orange color and the color needs to last for the lifetime of the knife.
 
Hey J,

Haven't ever tried it my self, but here's a hair brained idea. The caps off of orange gator aide bottles are hunter orange. If you could grind or crush up a few, heat 'um till hot enough to form and form a rough shape that you could sand and polish to a shape...might work?

As I said...never tried it, but plastic floats, it's the right color and they claim they're gonna last a thousand years in the land fill. LOL

All you'd need is something to mold it into a shape and way to clamp the mold halves together to add some pressure. Stuff has a pretty low forming temp.

Maybe some of the smart guys around here would even have some simple ideas how to best form plastic.
 
What about covering the pommel with orange colored epoxy? Or maybe the glow in the dark green stuff. I've got some pigment that glows in the dark and can be mixed with epoxy. My brother and I ordered it for the tips of custom cat fishing rods. I think I found it on ebay a few years ago, look for fishing rod supplies. I'm not sure what you call the stuff but it glows in the dark like the indiglo watches.
 
My first thought was to use orange G-10 and then drill holes and fill with the glow in the dark epoxy. Several supply companies offer the glow in the dark additive but for the life of me I can't remember which ones I have seen offer it.
 
What about that stuff you dip tool handles into? That rubbery grippy material? Is it available in safety orange or yellow? Ah, yes, this stuff: http://www.plastidip.com/home_solutions/Plasti_Dip -- notice that they have a clear version of it now. I'm thinking using the fluorescent orange paint and/or the glow in the dark stuff on the whole cork handle, then dipping the whole works into the clear plastic dip. They also have color/tinting kits for the clear version.
 
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I'll have to check into that some of that stuff. They want the color to be a bright orange like a blaze orange. They boat with lights on the front of the boat. Some do it during the day so it needs to be visible at night and during the day.
 
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