All About Pocket Knives

SteelMyHeart85420 wrote:Is it odd that I am sitting here wishing I had a knife with a broken bone handle?

Not at all.

Remember knife repairing is twice as addictive as knife collecting!

fitzroe wrote:The Acra-Glas in the green box is a lot easier to mix and work with.It's about like butter and the red is liquid.

I just ordered the red because that's what was in the OP.
What are other opinions....red vs green?

I have a couple of MOP handled pen knives with chips or chunks missing. I wonder if Acra-Glas could be mixed with some kind of pearl like powder to fix them. Anyone ever tried that?

The Red will probably be best for that job. A lot easier to get in those tiny holes he drilled.That's a neat way to measure the the portions.

You guys have impressed me with the repairs you're posting. I'm going to order me some and give it a try. Thanks!

Nothing will repair broken pearl, except replacing the pearl. You can do it-but the results will be horrible.
I use clear polyester casting resin from Hobby Lobby. It works very well.

just bob wrote:You guys have impressed me with the repairs you're posting. I'm going to order me some and give it a try. Thanks!

That was the whole point in my original post, get others to try repairing broken bone on EDC knives instead of rehandling or tossing them. SUCCESS !!!

Well played, sir

One revision...over my previously posted repair...
In hand, it looked pretty good. It seemed to me, that the limiting factor, was the "dullness" of the Acraglas. Today I put a thin coat of clear fingernail polish, over the Acraglas. It gave it a shine that brought it closer to the sheen of the bone. In short, I thought it was a worthy addition, to this repair. In hand, it looks pretty good.

Before glaze, not too bad: After glaze to Acraglas, better shine and blends in better:

Those of you who have tried the Acraglas like I showed in the OP for repairing bone may have had this happen. Yesterday when I got out my Acraglas kit, I opened the container of resin to find that it has changed from the clear liquid which it was into kind of a white paste. I stuck a popsicle stick in and tried to stir it, but it was too solid. So I thought before I toss it I will call Brownells customer service number and see if there is a solvent that can be added to it and bring it back to life. I talked to the lady and explained the situation, and she told me to either put the tub in a hot water bath or put it in the microwave for a few seconds (with the metal lid removed) and the heat would fix the problem, like one would do with honey that had turned white and set up. She was right, I put it in the microwave for 10 seconds and it turned back into a clear liquid. Now to fix that old jack with the broken bone.

Good to know!

Lesson learned! Use Acra Glas and not hardware store epoxy! I mixed it with sanding dust from another project and didn't put enough in the epox to match. Also the epoxy doesn't buff up like Acra Glas does. I jigged it with a dremel, used a toothpick to color it and it bled into the epoxy...so I covered it with clear nail polish and did it again. Then another nail polish coat and when it dried I sanded it off so the polish will protect the colored jigging. The knife is. a Chinese Winchester so it was great to practice on. It looks better than it did!

Nice job!

You can get various colors of pearlizing powder to add to clear resins that may make a decent patch for MOP. I have no first hand experience with it at this point but the potential seems to be there

I doubt anything will work well with pearl.
Mother Nature made it the way it is, and I have seen nothing that will match it.

This is the latest Acra-Glas patch job I did on this 2 and 7/8" bone handled Hibbard, Spencer, & Bartlett pen knife that I picked up for $3 at the fleamarket. It had 3 pieces of bone missing, 2 on the mark side and 1 on the pile side. 1/32" holes to anchor the Acra-Glas Finished

Great work Old Cutler, looks about as good as it can get. Nice tutorial and info, great to see your work too. Congrats on some great jobs.

That looks nice. I don't have the patience for that type of work

Great Job!! Looks like new.
Nev

I got this Case XX 6265 from my brother in laws estate a few months ago. He had shown it to me years ago and wanted me to rehandle it for him WHEN he had found a donor knife to replace just the pile side scale. Well that never happened and I bought it from the estate to take on trying to fix it. After considering several ways to do it, I finally decided the best bet was to try to keep it as original as possible. So an Acra-Glas repair was done. This is the biggest "pour" I had done, but did not have any problems with it.
1/32 inch holes drilled into the bone to anchor the Acra-Glas. Pour a little of the Acra-Glas and use a toothpick to push it into these holes to remove trapped air. The "moat" to contain the Acra-Glas, used modeling clay. The jigging on the front for comparison. Finished product, Acra-Glas texture is somewhat different than bone, and polishing results in a different sheen, but the knife is back to being a user. Note handle pin embedded into the Acra-glas to also aid in anchoring it.

Great job OC.

doglegg wrote: ↑Sat Jun 15, 2024 3:39 pm Great job OC.

Thanks Floyd.

A good job, Olde Cutler! You put the ol' gal back to work in style!
One of my favorite patterns.
Treefarmer

That came out great! Nice job.

Ken

Nice job and impressive results!