All About Pocket Knives

This was my first time working with Micarta. I found it easy to work with but kinda tricky to get cleaned up after polishing. Seemed like the polishing compound got into the fibers a bit and took some effort to get out. I originally hand polished it with grits all the way down to 6000 and it didn't look too bad but I decided to use the polishing wheel on it after peening all the pins.
It turned out okay but I'm not overly impressed with the material in general. Just my personal preference I guess but I prefer working with bone. Maybe after doing a few more knives in Micarta I'll warm up to it.
Since I'm keeping it for myself I decided to put a brushed satin finish on the blades to clean up some of the damage (I know ya'all don't like that but humor me, its for my personal collection!)

It looks good Jeff. Pretty nice work for the first time working with micarta!

Looks nice, love the 23 pattern,too! I've put painters tape, over the micarta, when doing the metal polish. I don't know whether you will want to do this...but, when finished, I spray the entire handle with WD40, which , IMHO gives the fibers a uniform more profound color. Note: I haven't worked with white...so don't know if you want to do that...but not sure what it might look like, if you get selective areas of oil on the handles, when oiling the joints. Just thoughts...

I think it looks great! As far as the blade polish - Your knife, your rules! The handles have a nice tight fit and everything looks good, so I think you should be proud to carry it. I would!

I have not used the Ivory canvas Micarta yet, but with the ivory paper Micarta I had the same thing happen with the black polishing residue getting on the ivory. I used Brasso to remove the black stuff from the Micarta. Brasso has kind of an ammonia smell to it and that might be why it works. Your finished knife looks fantastic though!

That is a very nice old 23.

orvet wrote:It looks good Jeff. Pretty nice work for the first time working with micarta!

Thanks Dale, I appreciate it.
Jeff

Doc B wrote:Looks nice, love the 23 pattern,too! I've put painters tape, over the micarta, when doing the metal polish. I don't know whether you will want to do this...but, when finished, I spray the entire handle with WD40, which , IMHO gives the fibers a uniform more profound color. Note: I haven't worked with white...so don't know if you want to do that...but not sure what it might look like, if you get selective areas of oil on the handles, when oiling the joints. Just thoughts...

Thanks Doc. I’m going to leave this one as it is (except to fix the small nick in the small blade). But I will keep the WD40 trick in mind for the next Micarta upgrade!

Reverand wrote:I think it looks great! As far as the blade polish - Your knife, your rules! The handles have a nice tight fit and everything looks good, so I think you should be proud to carry it. I would!

Thanks Rev!

OLDE CUTLER wrote:I have not used the Ivory canvas Micarta yet, but with the ivory paper Micarta I had the same thing happen with the black polishing residue getting on the ivory. I used Brasso to remove the black stuff from the Micarta. Brasso has kind of an ammonia smell to it and that might be why it works. Your finished knife looks fantastic though!

Thanks OC! Brasso eh? I’ll have to give that a try!
Jeff

FRJ wrote:That is a very nice old 23.

Thank you!
Jeff

Fantastic job! It looks better than new.

Colonel26 wrote:Fantastic job! It looks better than new.

Thanks Colonel!

Another knice one Jeffinn.

Really nice work Jeff. I love that ivory canvas look. I may have to give it a try in the future. I tried black canvas micarta a few times and never really liked the results. Best regards.

Herb

doglegg wrote:Another knice one Jeffinn.

Thanks dogleg!

herbva wrote:Really nice work Jeff. I love that ivory canvas look. I may have to give it a try in the future. I tried black canvas micarta a few times and never really liked the results. Best regards.

Herb

Thanks Herb!

Looks great to me. Micartas can vary greatly, so don't give up on them. I also prefer natural materials like bone, but sometimes it's nice to work with something that can take a beating.

glennbad wrote:Looks great to me. Micartas can vary greatly, so don't give up on them. I also prefer natural materials like bone, but sometimes it's nice to work with something that can take a beating.

Thank, I appreciate it.