Walter. Get some clear resin. Put the titanium on a baking sheet. Bake it until the color changes. Bake multiple batches so you produce different colors. Add to clear resin. Whatever you grind will show silver titanium but anything trapped in the clear resin will show colors of blue or yellow or red.
Yea man, the titanium peacock blue would be a nice color to mix up with some clear resin. Not sure how one would do it, but If there was some way to anodize a bunch of the shavings at once you could go nuts.
@@lsubslimed Titanium is harder to anodise than Aluminium, the easiest way is to heat it to change the oxide layer and get your colours that way. (and no chemicals or electricity regulation required)
Never seen this done before by anyone and I watch 20 or so videos on knife making a day. A good show for beginner knife makers to see. Take care and God bless!
Hi Walter. I wish you all the best, but you should research what kind of bond you can get between the resin and the metal or plastic you're using as a filler. Unfortunately, bonding to either aluminum or titanium is sketchy at best. Aluminum oxide which forms naturally on bare aluminum and titanium dioxide which does the same on titanium are both compounds which have no free electrons to provide a chemical bond with just about anything. If you've tried to glue anything to HDPE, you'll also know that nothing will stick to it either. These "micartas" probably won't hold up under serious long term abuse that some people call normal wear and tear. I used to make G-10 windsurfing fins. As the epoxy oxidized it left micro fibers on the surface which needed to be continually dressed away. I'm afraid the same thing will be problematic with your manufactured composite. That's why the linen and cotton micartas work well. The matrix and substrate decay at about the same speed, leaving a smooth, pleasant workaday surface. John Gullotti
Awesome video Walter - as usual! One thing I'd add is that setting your cup of resin, glue up, or whatever else you want to agitate on your drill press platform or something similar and switching on the machine to let it run for a few minutes is a great way to help vibrate the material a bit and help remove some of that excess air and get it to settle a little better. Credit to someone on the Knifetalk podcast for that tip - can't remember if it was a host or a listener who sent it in but either way it works!
I like the use of the ziplock bags, keeps the messy factor down to a minimum. The other folks I’ve seen use homemade Micarta, are pen turners and occasionally ring or bowl turners.
@walter use 2 pieces of melamine board instead of aluminum and spray them with a little mold release and you'll get perfectly smooth scales, just a tip to try.
If you make alot of your own micarta you might consider a vacuum chamber, you can make them very cheaply and they work better than agitating. Keep it up man , I love your videos.
I already did this a couple months ago using Total Boat 2:1 clear epoxy and clean FDE sawdust. It looks outstanding. So I made a shit ton more. That Total Boat epoxy works fantastic. It's clear, doesn't stink and the best part is that it doesn't trap air bubbles. It's not much more expensive than that shity bondo either.
Nice. Having some experience with composites w/resin, I would suggest two things: 1) way too much resin in your mix. Just try to achieve dough -like consistency, not flowing. It is going to be much stronger (if the strength is even a factor here) 2) few cycles in vacuum pump/vacuum chamber does miracles for escaping trapped bubbles. Even the home vacuum packing food machines, when you pack your stuff into provided plastic bags (akin to your zip locks), works really well
I tried making micarta with denim and white canvas and epoxy resin. For some reason it turned out really soft, like I can just about fold the scale in half and it will return to it's normal shape. I dont know if I mixed it wrong or what, but I made some mosaic pins with the same resin and that came out like plastic the way I expected it to.
Walter, instead of a mechanical agitator to get rid of air bubbles, have you thought of a vacuum pump? The ones that refrigeration people use would work well and are not that expensive.
Great show. I love this type of handle. Even the other ones Micarta scales you did. *"If you ever decide to use a mold (like you made a certain shape handle in aluminum with your mill) and you want a good release (but can't or don't want to use plastic bag....use TYVEK TAPE. The smooth, white tape they use with house construction. They use this all the time on Stone Coat Countertops. It works excellent. They also have different types of very clear resin, slow, fast, thick and thin. Reasonable priced and they are very nice people. Thank you for sharing.
Seems to me that you could get a better result if you boxed in 3 sides around the edge of the bag with scrap pieces of micarta and then turn the whole thing vertical as the resin dries. That way gravity is pushing things outward to fill the bag completely against both flat surfaces of the block rather than away from one side. Very cool idea though. Resourceful use of what would otherwise be waste, and it seems like it'll look pretty nice as finished scales.
That was interesting. For the plasti-carta, you could swirl it first to give different patterns. Have you thought of building a vacuum chamber to de-gas your resin?
Ive heard of other maker letting the micarta set on a drill press with it running ti agitate the air out, actually I believe they were stabilizing wood but concept still applies.
Super Kameeo, Noticed as I did. You sure used alot of hardner. Maybe thats the tip I need. My bluejean Micarta came out soft. Would Optical grade Acrylic work for clear. of course pizo electric vibrator and a vacuum pump. One' guishi mas. Thank you very much. Twisted blue nickel/steel was gorgeous.
Only if you use actual epoxy resin, in this video he is using polyester (Bondo). With what he's using is extremely hard to get the hardener ratio right, in most cases the resin will start setting before you have time to get the pressure (or vacuum) going. Polyester is also uv sensitive and not really water proof, you have to remember to seal it if you're planning to use it outside.
really cool! I love to recycle things, too, its just always fun because you never know what you'll get! But, as far as I know, Epoxy doesn't stick to HDPE, don't know why, but thats what my epoxy bottle said... seemed to work anyways :D
Micarta is micarta because of the fabric fibers reinforcing the epoxy to create something stronger than either are by themselves. This does nothing but make more brittle resin, since titanium won't even bond with resin.
Bravo Walter! Keep a 5 gal bucket by the mill Walter- Ti and Al shavings make it worthwhile to scrap! even if you find a scrapper locally to pick it up- offer 70/30 for him and make some money back on the trash! Great idea on the recycle though! Be safe and as always- at peace
You can actually agitate a small batch like that by getting anything that shakes, like a blender or electric pruning shears. Fasten your machine to the resin cup with a giant rubber band (or anything), and turn ‘er on. Or you could put a slightly unbalanced load in a washing machine, and run the washer on the spin cycle with your resin on top of the washer.
Richard Cranium price might be one of the reasons he’s not using epoxy resin, that or fiberglass resin was what he had lying around. Unless doing Micarta is your main gig, no need to spend tons on some West 105 epoxy resin.
@@Butterflyknifes1 If I were to do this, I'd probably try to find the finest grade of bronze wool I could, and use the absolute minimum of resin I could get away with. Maybe tinted a pretty green or blue. But that's me. I like the idea of this DIY-carta.
You should keep your shop clean. You should clean after every operation. So you can keep your chips clean and separate, for recycling. If you’re not recycling your making a mistake. The guy I once worked for has been saving chips since the mid ‘70s and has, I don’t even know how many hundreds of pounds of free aluminum. It’s all part of his retirement fund.
Does benchmade sandblast their micarta handles to get that cool texture? Always wanted to experiment and see if I could duplicate it but I got out of knife making years ago.
lunkydog, I still have a sheet of G10 and it’s smooth also like micarta, that’s why I’ve wondered how they get that cool texture. Do they etch it chemically or sand blast, bead blast? Thanks
Beat me to it... Us folk who work with dead tree carcasses (woodturners in particular) will either degas with vacuum or use a pressure pot to compress the bubbles into invisibility.
Walter. Get some clear resin. Put the titanium on a baking sheet. Bake it until the color changes. Bake multiple batches so you produce different colors. Add to clear resin. Whatever you grind will show silver titanium but anything trapped in the clear resin will show colors of blue or yellow or red.
Yea man, the titanium peacock blue would be a nice color to mix up with some clear resin. Not sure how one would do it, but If there was some way to anodize a bunch of the shavings at once you could go nuts.
@@lsubslimed
Titanium is harder to anodise than Aluminium, the easiest way is to heat it to change the oxide layer and get your colours that way. (and no chemicals or electricity regulation required)
@@lancer2204 Electricity anodizing Ti is a lot easier, especially compared to Aluminum.
great idea!
A vacuum chamber would do great at removing the air bubbles and its probably one of the batter way'd to do it
I enjoy the upcycling nature of the homemade dis-carta (out of otherwise discarded materials)
Never seen this done before by anyone and I watch 20 or so videos on knife making a day. A good show for beginner knife makers to see. Take care and God bless!
Hi Walter. I wish you all the best, but you should research what kind of bond you can get between the resin and the metal or plastic you're using as a filler. Unfortunately, bonding to either aluminum or titanium is sketchy at best. Aluminum oxide which forms naturally on bare aluminum and titanium dioxide which does the same on titanium are both compounds which have no free electrons to provide a chemical bond with just about anything. If you've tried to glue anything to HDPE, you'll also know that nothing will stick to it either. These "micartas" probably won't hold up under serious long term abuse that some people call normal wear and tear.
I used to make G-10 windsurfing fins. As the epoxy oxidized it left micro fibers on the surface which needed to be continually dressed away. I'm afraid the same thing will be problematic with your manufactured composite. That's why the linen and cotton micartas work well. The matrix and substrate decay at about the same speed, leaving a smooth, pleasant workaday surface.
John Gullotti
I'm sure it will work fine for it's purpose, Sail fins, maybe not, but a knife handle, most likely
I think that's a pretty creative solution good idea. Be interesting to see how it works out the green looks great on camera
This is a very useful tip for many makers.
Awesome video Walter - as usual! One thing I'd add is that setting your cup of resin, glue up, or whatever else you want to agitate on your drill press platform or something similar and switching on the machine to let it run for a few minutes is a great way to help vibrate the material a bit and help remove some of that excess air and get it to settle a little better. Credit to someone on the Knifetalk podcast for that tip - can't remember if it was a host or a listener who sent it in but either way it works!
You can use an orbital sander as a vibrator. Put it in the vice upside down and hold the cup on it.
This is excellent sir! Gives me some ideas for sure! "Floor-carta" made me spit out my drink with laughter!
Make some with crushed magnets.....and call it Magna Carta. ;-)
First environmental Smith that I know off. I may be incorrect...but you are the first one I've seen recycling from the floor. THANK YOU!!
Green Beetle made a blade form his floor shavings once if memory serves.
I like the use of the ziplock bags, keeps the messy factor down to a minimum. The other folks I’ve seen use homemade Micarta, are pen turners and occasionally ring or bowl turners.
Love that face at 0:05 haha!
Awesome use of "waste" material. Can't wait to see how they look as handle scales!
Great stuff as always, Walter :)
I enjoyed this, it was a cool idea that I hadn't heard of.
I've been saving saw dust from nice woods for this very thing! Thanks!
@walter use 2 pieces of melamine board instead of aluminum and spray them with a little mold release and you'll get perfectly smooth scales, just a tip to try.
If you make alot of your own micarta you might consider a vacuum chamber, you can make them very cheaply and they work better than agitating. Keep it up man , I love your videos.
I already did this a couple months ago using Total Boat 2:1 clear epoxy and clean FDE sawdust. It looks outstanding. So I made a shit ton more. That Total Boat epoxy works fantastic. It's clear, doesn't stink and the best part is that it doesn't trap air bubbles. It's not much more expensive than that shity bondo either.
Omg the amount of hardener you used! Isn't 2-4% usually enough?
brass shavings with blue resin would give a nice lapis lazuli look i think
Great video, I'm looking forward to the final product.
Nice. Having some experience with composites w/resin, I would suggest two things:
1) way too much resin in your mix. Just try to achieve dough -like consistency, not flowing. It is going to be much stronger (if the strength is even a factor here)
2) few cycles in vacuum pump/vacuum chamber does miracles for escaping trapped bubbles. Even the home vacuum packing food machines, when you pack your stuff into provided plastic bags (akin to your zip locks), works really well
I’ve seen a lot of micarta done with denim and canvas. I’d love to see it done with silk. It may have a totally different feel.
The absolute coolest recycled handle idea ever!
Shop time did something similar thing, He turned s bowl from a big bowl blank.
On Shop Time, Peter Brown called that “The Murder Bowl,” because when you turn it, sharp shreds of metal fly everywhere.
cool I might make some with forge scale in it
Try mixing black and yellow, it gives you a woodsy o.d. green. Great for scales.
I’ve done an almost exact same thing but with Nitro V chips instead of titanium. It also had nice gold and blue heat colors from the machining
I tried making micarta with denim and white canvas and epoxy resin. For some reason it turned out really soft, like I can just about fold the scale in half and it will return to it's normal shape. I dont know if I mixed it wrong or what, but I made some mosaic pins with the same resin and that came out like plastic the way I expected it to.
You did not use enough hardener
That's kind of what I figured. I will have to use a scale next time to make sure, because it's supposed to be a 1:1 ratio.
As long as you don't over heat that titanium sworf (chips) you can recycle it, pays great compared to any other metal.
Walter, instead of a mechanical agitator to get rid of air bubbles, have you thought of a vacuum pump? The ones that refrigeration people use would work well and are not that expensive.
Bet this would make a great bedding compound
Great show. I love this type of handle. Even the other ones Micarta scales you did.
*"If you ever decide to use a mold (like you made a certain shape handle in aluminum with your mill) and you want a good release (but can't or don't want to use plastic bag....use TYVEK TAPE. The smooth, white tape they use with house construction. They use this all the time on Stone Coat Countertops. It works excellent.
They also have different types of very clear resin, slow, fast, thick and thin. Reasonable priced and they are very nice people.
Thank you for sharing.
Were you mad at the fiberglass hardener? Pretty sure you only needed a few drops of hardener for what looks like maybe a cup of resin.
Won't hurt anything. May be considered a waste to some, and considered good insurance for a hard product for others
you should try using a white pigment and then elecro anodizing the chips
Seems to me that you could get a better result if you boxed in 3 sides around the edge of the bag with scrap pieces of micarta and then turn the whole thing vertical as the resin dries. That way gravity is pushing things outward to fill the bag completely against both flat surfaces of the block rather than away from one side. Very cool idea though. Resourceful use of what would otherwise be waste, and it seems like it'll look pretty nice as finished scales.
That was interesting. For the plasti-carta, you could swirl it first to give different patterns. Have you thought of building a vacuum chamber to de-gas your resin?
You could put the resin into a little selfmade vacuum chamber to get rid of the air bubbles as opposed to agitating it.
Ive heard of other maker letting the micarta set on a drill press with it running ti agitate the air out, actually I believe they were stabilizing wood but concept still applies.
I've had good luck using chalk to tint epoxy. It's cheap as hell and doesn't affect the strength too badly, particularly for an application like this.
Here's a suggestion for mycarta. Black pigments with brass chips.
Super Kameeo, Noticed as I did. You sure used alot of hardner. Maybe thats the tip I need. My bluejean Micarta came out soft. Would Optical grade Acrylic work for clear. of course pizo electric vibrator and a vacuum pump. One' guishi mas. Thank you very much. Twisted blue nickel/steel was gorgeous.
Walter great video! I usually see guys pour it into a Tupperware container lined with wax paper or something but that’s cool!
Can you make a titanium knife? Like a custom make? Or know someone that does? I don't know how to do all that or where to get titanium planks.
I really enjoy your videos. Ive learned a lot from you. I very much appreciate that. When I can afford to I will help support this channel
Great video !
Thanks
Maybe you should hire me to work in your shop. I have been told that I am an agitator.
if I made a small vacuum chamber and hooked my vacuum pump to it (with the cup of resin in it), would that get the air bubbles out of the resin?
Yes
Only if you use actual epoxy resin, in this video he is using polyester (Bondo). With what he's using is extremely hard to get the hardener ratio right, in most cases the resin will start setting before you have time to get the pressure (or vacuum) going. Polyester is also uv sensitive and not really water proof, you have to remember to seal it if you're planning to use it outside.
A mold making vacuum should be adequate for your needs. And those are pretty darn cheap
really cool! I love to recycle things, too, its just always fun because you never know what you'll get! But, as far as I know, Epoxy doesn't stick to HDPE, don't know why, but thats what my epoxy bottle said... seemed to work anyways :D
There was a micarta type material called tuffnel that was used back in the 90's that was full of nasty stuff you did not want to breath!
Good show
Love the qwinett strikers cup i love in qwinett
Micarta is micarta because of the fabric fibers reinforcing the epoxy to create something stronger than either are by themselves. This does nothing but make more brittle resin, since titanium won't even bond with resin.
Thanx Walter ‼️💯
Bravo Walter! Keep a 5 gal bucket by the mill Walter- Ti and Al shavings make it worthwhile to scrap! even if you find a scrapper locally to pick it up- offer 70/30 for him and make some money back on the trash! Great idea on the recycle though! Be safe and as always- at peace
I thought you stopped making videos a while back. TH-cam have unsubbed me from you but ironically showed this video in my recommended
Cool idea
"in a perfect world I would have a mechanical agitator" how far we have come.
You can actually agitate a small batch like that by getting anything that shakes, like a blender or electric pruning shears. Fasten your machine to the resin cup with a giant rubber band (or anything), and turn ‘er on. Or you could put a slightly unbalanced load in a washing machine, and run the washer on the spin cycle with your resin on top of the washer.
Why didnt you anodize the titanium? Could have done a color gradial fade
Been watching for years and just realized we live in the same city
Go Stripers!
Pretty cool, original idea...
Turning trash into treasure. Very nice.
Awesome! I have a Q: is there a reason not to use epoxy resin? Thanks, and thanks for the great vidya's.
Richard Cranium price might be one of the reasons he’s not using epoxy resin, that or fiberglass resin was what he had lying around. Unless doing Micarta is your main gig, no need to spend tons on some West 105 epoxy resin.
I noticed your cup are you in Georgia?
Your Plas-Carta reminds me of the Noodle-Carta that Viking Knifeworks makes! Great stuff, thanks for the ideas!
Really liking this crap-carta. I have all kinds of crap. Great video.
As a mechanical agitator, I would tape it to the top of my brass cleaner and just turn it on for a few minutes.
Make one with copper shavings
Hmmmm. You can buy copper scrubbing pads and I think you can still get brass wool (like steel wool, but brass) in different grades.
Hmmmm.
@@theprojectproject01 good idea... thanks for the info
@@Butterflyknifes1 If I were to do this, I'd probably try to find the finest grade of bronze wool I could, and use the absolute minimum of resin I could get away with. Maybe tinted a pretty green or blue. But that's me.
I like the idea of this DIY-carta.
Alexander the Great had a body armor made out of glued linen. So basicly he had a micarta armor.
Reusing brass flakes in a red resin sounds interesting. Iron-man Knife Handle :D
Are you in Georgia?
cool!! how about hamcarta?? : )
You should keep your shop clean. You should clean after every operation. So you can keep your chips clean and separate, for recycling. If you’re not recycling your making a mistake. The guy I once worked for has been saving chips since the mid ‘70s and has, I don’t even know how many hundreds of pounds of free aluminum. It’s all part of his retirement fund.
Make a vacuum chamber for removing air
you already have the tools for it
Go Jackets!
Ticarta🤯
I expected something in layers. Still neat, though.
Does benchmade sandblast their micarta handles to get that cool texture? Always wanted to experiment and see if I could duplicate it but I got out of knife making years ago.
I believe that's G10 and it comes with a texture.
lunkydog, I still have a sheet of G10 and it’s smooth also like micarta, that’s why I’ve wondered how they get that cool texture. Do they etch it chemically or sand blast, bead blast? Thanks
@@shanek6582 I was fairly certain I've seen it offered with the texture on one side.
Walter, can you send some materials out to some of your fans out here serving in Afghanistan so we can have some fun 😎
rather use this titanium for making fireworks. the titanium produces bright white sparkles.
Something about that plascarta is unsettling
Vacuum degas the resin for better results. Vacuum chambers are easy; I'm surprised you don't have one.
(You can degas in a ziploc bag in the chamber)
Beat me to it... Us folk who work with dead tree carcasses (woodturners in particular) will either degas with vacuum or use a pressure pot to compress the bubbles into invisibility.
It's like the Murder Bowl made by Peter Brown on his channel Shop Time!
In a perfect world you would have a vacuum chamber
Just general crap off the floor, lol haha
That swarf could be sold, if it was clean. Now I'm certain it's the user getting the resin every where aha
Rust-Carda, would not look bad at all
Rust-Carta, sorry
Ticarta
Proteus handle
the plas - carta looks like chicken noodle soup
That will cut your hands to bits lol
HDPE - looks like rice in gravy LoL
the HDPE- carta looks like rice and soy sauce xD
id rather just call it ti-poxy or ti-res.
The plasti-carda looks like fermented herring
1😁😁