Micarta experimentation

The West Systems is available at many marine dealers that do boat building and repair. It dries crystal clear and is a great product but as Mike said it's pricey.
 
I'll get me some west epoxy once I get past this rig testing stage

TEST 3

highly experimental method: pour and press

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Hopefully you can see in picture number number 3 that I'm actually working in a pool of the epoxy. it seemed to be all well and good as I was going through all of layers. But today when I went to try to break it out of the mold, I had to literally break it out of the mold, with a hammer. On the plus side, that is one SMOOTH piece of composite

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I'm going to finish breaking it out of all of its wrappings tomorrow as its around 11 o'clock on my front. I am not sure this is going to be a viable method though as the layers started wrapping up around the sides and some didn't get pressed down far enough into the pool of epoxy and there are some large pockets of epoxy that I can see on the edges.

as a final note, here is everything I've done so far

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I'm planning on trying that pretty soon, because I can't get the color I'm looking for commercialy. I had planned to use wax paper on the top and bottom of the stack, but I hadn't taken the heat from the epoxy curing into account. Has anyone tried it with wax paper?

Where in Missippi are you from THunter?
 
Mike Carter has done it with wax paper, but I would recommend using some kind of cut up trash bag, something like hefty that you can rip off the scale without it tearing. Haven't been able to do any shop work, managed to catch a nasty bug wich has taken me from strep to bronchitis over a weeks time.

I'm from the Jackson area
 
I'm from Monticello, but I went to high school at Northwest Rankin, and still have friends in the area.

I'll try a block with wax paper this weekend and post how it turns out.
 
We found that the curing process will melt wax paper and may do the same with garbage bags. The expoxy we use gets HOT when it starts to set up. We have seen it smoking so much we were afraid it was going to burst into flames. The freezer bags have worked best for us. I think because they are also boiling bags.

It's mostly to keep your equipment clean anyway. If whatever you use sticks to the Micarta you are going to grind off the top layer anyway.
 
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Actually those last bags we used peeled right away from the last denim we made Mike. I don't know what brand they were. Sharon brought them from the house while we were working so hopefully she knows. I don't know if they had a film or what but the epoxy didn't stick to them at all. I just took them out of the press and peeled the material out of the bag and it was ready to go.

The freezer bags are the only way to go. I'm also looking into doing some vacuum bagging.
 
I've made several sets of scales with the wax paper and it peels right off for the most part. No major problems ......but on the other hand, I haven't seen my epoxy smoking yet. :scared:

I smoke enough for both of us.:biggrin:

Rudy
 
You might be able to try parchment paper? Its like wax paper but used for baking. Dont know if would hold up any better just a thought.
 
Parchment paper is actually what I've got. I'll let everybody know how it works.

I see a lot of folks from KY here. I lived in Boston, KY for a while and have family there and in Bardstown and La Grange.
 
I have made several slabs and used wax paper each time and like Rudy says ,it peels right off. I have actually seen my resi start to smoke ,didn't seem to hurt anything and again the wax paper peeled off. atleast for me it did good luck
 
I tried to make a little piece the other day, and even with my astounding foresight, i neglected the fact that i had no warm place to keep it during the cure, ("no place warm" being outside, in below freezing temps) so it came out all kinds of messed up. it didn't dry overnight, and it bubbled up, i think because it froze something in the resin. Thankfully it was a test piece, but i wont get to do it again until i can think of somewhere/thing to keep it warm, or until colorado thaws out
 
Try bringing it inside and putting some more pressure on it, If you wanted you could even drop it in a cooler with some heat packs if its too cold inside and out.
 
If you're using fiberglass resin, you can mix it hot by adding a few more drops of hardener (MEK). The down side is it gives you less working time. For epoxies, you can also buy hardeners for different applications such as tropical weather or cold weather. I doubt they have an application for sub-zero weather though. With epoxy in cold weather, even if your mix is right, it can take weeks to totally solidify and it will look cloudy. If you have to work in the cold, fiberglass resin is your best bet because of it's exothermic properties.

Rudy
 
Well I just got me a 1x30 harbor freight grinder, soon as I got home I got strait to work. Using the second micarta slab I made, a piece of scrap metal, and some standard nuts and bolts and drill bits, I set to making KSO#2
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few things learned: my drill press is very imprecise, I need step bits and better screws and bolts, I really need to make some more consistent micarta, and I need more practice and work with my accuracy.

Next set of blocks I'm going to be using a thinner material, plain boards for compression, now that I have a grinder I'm more motivated to work on this.
 
After having done this a few times now.....
8 or 9 bucks ain't bad for store bought scales, is it ? But how much fun it is.

Rudy
 
Its a ton of fun, its a great for working on other parts of knife making while I wait for my burners

edit: Also I just found out I live two streets over from Jim Burke, so that should also help some.
 
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Here are a couple pictures of my denim gun stock for those who haven't seen it yet.
I used MAX CLR-HP epoxy system, which Is cheaper then West Systems. I picked it
up on Ebay. It was a real workout shaping, and took a nice shine. Waxed paper stuck
pretty bad and had to be scrubbed off.
Pictures are lousy, but are the best I have

stock001.jpg

stock004.jpg
 
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Arrow,
That's alot of layup ! Nice work.
I use the same epoxy and have no problems peeling the wax paper off. It isn't an issue anyway once you're done shaping. Did you vacuum bag a piece that big ?
How many pairs of pants are you missing ?

Rudy
 
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