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  #1  
Old 05-29-2014, 08:43 AM
Delixyman Delixyman is offline
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Layer aluminum and wood

Hello. New to this forum here. I'm glad I found you!

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post. Feel free to move the post if not.

I want to make a handle layered with aluminum, wood, aluminum, wood etc. I want the layers to be very thin. About 1mm each.

I was thinking about gluing them together with epoxy, but I'm not sure if that is possible. I don't want it all to start cracking after a year or two. Do any of you guys have experience with aluminum and wood glued together?
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Old 05-29-2014, 09:21 AM
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Ray Rogers Ray Rogers is offline
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Welcome to the forum. There probably won't be a lot of experience with gluing metal to wood as it really doesn't work well. You can sand blast the aluminum and drill holes in it to make the glue hold better but without a pin or a bolt holding the whole mess together its just a matter of time before it comes apart.

We use glue under scales to block out moisture and don't count on it to hold the scales on. Sometimes it will work pretty well if all the conditions are just right and you do a good job of creating a mechanical bond with the glue (a series of mushroom shaped holes in thicker material for instance) but it simple adhesive force will never hold.....


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Old 05-29-2014, 12:39 PM
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DanCom DanCom is offline
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Hi and welcome the forum.

Although you didn't say, I'll assume the pieces are going to be laminated with the large faces in contact with each other and not a stack.

I have pondered something similar a while back as I have quite a bit of 0.02" sheet aluminum scrap and rolls of walnut veneer from a garage sale.

I was thinking about epoxy, then pin/pein with small, say 1/16" or 3/32" rod at various locations into a single piece. Once the two scales are made, I'd then drill, epoxy and pin/pein them to the tang and shape as usual. The drawback is you'll see the small pins in the finished product, but that could add an element of coolness too. :-)

Like Ray suggested, sandblast the aluminum to maximize adhesion.


I have not tried this yet, but I'd be willing to bet it would look pretty cool especially when shaping cuts across the layers with the dark walnut and shiny aluminum.

Let us know if you try something. I'll do the same.

Dan
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Old 05-29-2014, 05:38 PM
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cbsmith111 cbsmith111 is offline
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If you cut the layers close to your handle shape, epoxy them together and onto the tang, run bolts through them, and then shape them afterwards I don't see how it could come apart. Just like using liners under scales only with more layers. I'm assuming full tang of course, and you would need to use pretty slow setting epoxy.
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Old 05-30-2014, 06:01 AM
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Crex Crex is offline
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Looks to me like you need to explain your intended application methodology a little more clearly.
I agree with Ray and the others, you will need some form of mechanical bind to keep them from separating. With the wood (organic) and the aluminum (non-organic) they will expand and contract at different rates with temp and humidity changes causing face to face glue bonding to fail. I would think stacked washer application with a through tang construction would hold up best. Buck, Case, Marbles, Russell and others have used aluminum spacers in many of their through tang handles. Seldom more than two or three though. Just be aware aluminum does oxidize quite easily in the "raw" finish, that's why they came up with anodizing process.
Aluminum is cheap and so is wood so go ahead and test some different methods out. Better to find out on a test piece than on a completed knife.
Just remember, on any open grained wood you need to seal the pores before grinding/sanding or the metal will get down in the pores and not look so good.


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  #6  
Old 06-01-2014, 08:06 AM
huntforlife huntforlife is offline
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Simply gluing metal/wood/metal stacks will never hold up. I tried that with copper/wood/copper/wood. The epoxy or whatever glue you use will never hold up to handling. Best thing to do is blind pin/screw it if you don't want your fasteners exposed. It's still not the best connection, and could lead to separation over time unless you space your final fasteners close enough.

Bottom line is experiment. Worst case is you waste some material. Best case is you find out something that works.


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