Hi All,
After reading and digesting all of the info I can find on the web and particularly here, I attempted my first go at Home grown Micarta last night
I have been after making some Coyote brown Micarta for a while now, so after a couple of failed visits to charity shops looking for something the right colour, I decided to chop up a pair of my tan coloured chinos (this bar will be known as ChiCarta) last night. I bought 250ml of halfords finest epoxy resin and hardner, lined up a piece of grease proof paper, 2 slabs of floorboard, and three g-cramps. Based on the great tutorials here, I mixed apprximately half the recomended hardner with the the whole tin of resin, and started slapping it together.
First Fail:
Resin started going off after only 11 pieces of material, and by the 12 had turend into a a thick jelly.
Second fail:
Wrapped the lot up in the grease proof paper, regardless as the resin had gone right off. Clamped it all up, and hoped for the best.
I will put up photos of the finished item, later.
I am well chuffed with the final product, but have a couple of questions for the more experienced Micarta makers amongst you. Theonly donw side of experiment 1, is that the resin is clearly visible between layers (on the cut edge), and I think if the reaction of the resiin was slower, I would be able to squezze this out and get it more uniform accross the slab. The colour is great, as the tan trousers have darkened considerabley.
I used approximately 1.5cm (reccomended 2 - 3cm) of hardner per 10ml of resin, and the lot went off in a little under 10 minutes.
Question1, are there any SLOW cure resins I can use (I have found this one on Ebay, LINK) Are they as good? Obviously they will take longer to harden - I was cutting and sanding mine within an hour!!
Question 2, what is the optimum ammount of hardner to resin mix for the standard fibreglass resin from halfords. When I was a kid, I used to fix broken motorbike bits with isopon resin, and the dosing system for the hardner was much better than it is now!!
I will be repeating the experiment based on findings from this post this evening with the other leg from the trousers!!!
Thanks All
Chris
After reading and digesting all of the info I can find on the web and particularly here, I attempted my first go at Home grown Micarta last night
I have been after making some Coyote brown Micarta for a while now, so after a couple of failed visits to charity shops looking for something the right colour, I decided to chop up a pair of my tan coloured chinos (this bar will be known as ChiCarta) last night. I bought 250ml of halfords finest epoxy resin and hardner, lined up a piece of grease proof paper, 2 slabs of floorboard, and three g-cramps. Based on the great tutorials here, I mixed apprximately half the recomended hardner with the the whole tin of resin, and started slapping it together.
First Fail:
Resin started going off after only 11 pieces of material, and by the 12 had turend into a a thick jelly.
Second fail:
Wrapped the lot up in the grease proof paper, regardless as the resin had gone right off. Clamped it all up, and hoped for the best.
I will put up photos of the finished item, later.
I am well chuffed with the final product, but have a couple of questions for the more experienced Micarta makers amongst you. Theonly donw side of experiment 1, is that the resin is clearly visible between layers (on the cut edge), and I think if the reaction of the resiin was slower, I would be able to squezze this out and get it more uniform accross the slab. The colour is great, as the tan trousers have darkened considerabley.
I used approximately 1.5cm (reccomended 2 - 3cm) of hardner per 10ml of resin, and the lot went off in a little under 10 minutes.
Question1, are there any SLOW cure resins I can use (I have found this one on Ebay, LINK) Are they as good? Obviously they will take longer to harden - I was cutting and sanding mine within an hour!!
Question 2, what is the optimum ammount of hardner to resin mix for the standard fibreglass resin from halfords. When I was a kid, I used to fix broken motorbike bits with isopon resin, and the dosing system for the hardner was much better than it is now!!
I will be repeating the experiment based on findings from this post this evening with the other leg from the trousers!!!
Thanks All
Chris
