Strawbeery Fields Forever-an Epoxy Story

[Osprey Guy]

Late last night I finally took a deep breath and glued up the 1st "kitchen knife". The reason for all the aprehension was simple, I had screwed up in procedure.

Because this is a "slab only" knife, no bolster or guard, I was required to final finish the frond edge of the handle where it contacts the blade. Once glue is applied I wouldn't be able to get in there to sand or "clean-up". Additionaly, it was sort of a work in progress being my very first fixed blade, I hadn't decided on the shape of the front edge yet. Once I got into it, I pretty much kept going and all but finished the entire handle...ooops!

Of course this now meant when I glued, I was going to have all kinds of fun keeping the handle nearly perfectly clean and free of epoxy.
Not fun...I psychologically put it off as long as possible.

So late last night I began. Got it all glued up, wiping off excess epoxy as best I could, but for some reason it seemed like I was moving glue around more than wiping off. I was using a 60 minute epoxy so I had time. I would try and clean the epoxy, in the process occasionally, accidently moving the mosaic pins which I had to keep re-aligning...

The whole thing was like a vicious cycle that went on from 1:30 am when I started until 3:45am when I realized suddenly, looking over at the can of "acetone", that it was instead ALCOHOL I had inadvertantly purchased...not exactly the same thing as acetone!

As there were still traces of "smeared" epoxy left on the knife, I frantically raced up to our bedroom and careful not to wake my wife, grabbed for the only bottle of nail polish remover I could find...STRAWBERRY SCENTED, oily polish remover!!!

It worked like a charm! Inside of a couple of minutes the knife cleaned right up and looks great. I now have to carefully grind down what's left of pins on one side (I had slotted them so I could turn with a screwdriver in order to properly align them,) and lightly sand as there's not much margin for error at this point, but I think I'll be OK.

Of course, the knife now has a wonderful, fragrant scent of fresh STRAWBERRYS!!!

Dennis

Yeah Baby!

[Mike Hull]

..

[Bob Sigmon]

Dennis,

Of course you are going to deliver the knife with a nice strawberry basket and some chocolate.

Glad you got the finish problems worked out! I'm sure that they are going to love the knives. And now that you've had so much practice, you won't have any problems with finishing the rest of the series. Each knife will get easier and easier. By the end you won't even remember why you were having a problem in the beginning.

Congrats, and we are looking forward to pics

Bob Sigmon

[Osprey Guy]

I know about nail polish remover being acetone..that's why I ran for it when I realized I was trying to clean with alcohol...just didn't plan on scented version. Part of my problem was that I didn't know how long I could wait and still come back to wipe clean...It scared me to leave it alone thinking it would set up and it'd be too late to fix.

Handle is almost cleaned up now. Pins ground off really easy. Final (careful) sanding to Micarta and Pins (both) with Dremel is very easy for me as I have a very high comfort level w/Dremel...the past 5 months working with it almost exclusively paid off!

I expect to be finished knife within an hour or so. Just took a break for a late lunch (don't need to be getting any more light-headed than I am already!)

Dennis

Yeah Baby!

I'll post photos as soon as possible...this has been a long time coming...

[Bob Warner]

You finally ran out of reasons not to get started on the epoxy. It is funny when someone tackles something new that can make or break many hours worth of work. You tend to get a little scared and put it off. Like Bob Sigman said, it will get easier and eventually you won't even hesitate. You will get mad when you get ready and find out that something happened and you can't find your epoxy. You will go from procrastinating to looking forward to it.

[Don Cowles]

Dennis, the next time you are ready to glue down slab handles, rub the finished front edges with a thick coat of Johnson's paste floor wax. Do the same thing on the faces of the ricasso that abut the scales, being careful not to get any on the gluing surface.

Glue it up, and let it cure. Don't worry about the squeeze-out in front of the scales; it will peel right off of the waxed surfaces.

[edited for a typo]

[Ray Rogers]

Interesting how everyone has their own way of dealing with common problems. Consider this, Dennis:

I make a lot of full tang kitchen knives,many using expensive stabilized burl wood handles. My method of dealing with the glue is not to deal with it until after it sets except for the part at the front of the handle. I shape and polish the front only, attach the slabs with Loveless bolts and lots of super strong epoxy. After it gets semi-hard I use acetone to remove the little bit at the front of the handle like Don said. The rest of the still unshaped handle has large blobs ob glue oozing out every where. I usually have to break the knife loose from the table top but this is easy because I put down a paper towel first.

The next day I shape and polish the handle and grind off all the epoxy in the process. No muss, no fuss...

[tmickley]

I use alcohol all the time if I don't have acetone handy. Seems to work just fine. I know that I have drank enough of the stuff not to hurt me too bad (hang overs don't count). I can't say the same about acetone.

[DC KNIVES]

I have to agree with Tracy.I glue up and use packaged alcohol swabs to clean the front.You don't get an excess of alcohol this way to seep in and its easy to store.Dave

[Terry Hearn]

That trick of Don's works pretty good, when I first heard about it from him I was working on a knife ready to glue up. I gave it a go and ain't looked back since Awhile back I ran out of wax and sure as heck wasan't going to mess with cleaning off the epoxy not after that wax trick, no-sir never again! I had a little wheel bearing grease and gave it a thin coat, worked great. I'll get around to getting some more wax one of these days, proably after I run out of wheel bearing grease.

[Jason Cutter]

Greetings,

Thought I'd revive an old thread about epoxy. An oldie but a goodie. I used to LURVE working with epoxy. At the time I had no drill press and couldn't make pin holes, so I still had to figure out how to stick everything together. Yes, epoxy goes everywhere. I find that acetone's the best to take it off so I have 2 litre cans of it lying around all the time.

For 30minute epoxy, I find that anywhere between a gel texture and near solid occurs between 15minutes and 30 minutes. Ie.- the epoxy is no longer workable for spreading around etc. At this time, the epoxy is a rubbery texture and doesn't adhere to the surfaces yet. I also always leave the container used to mix the epoxy sitting on the bench next to the knife. I play with it to confirm that the epoxy is at the right degree of hardness.

I use a sharp hobby knife and slice the across the epoxy at the front of the slabs, being careful to make the cut right in the junction. I then use a popsicle stick cut at a sharp angle to push off the excess epoxy. It peels off quite easily. I then clean up with a quick wipe of acetone.

I'd be careful with the acetone. It obviously dissolves the epoxy and could deifnitely get under the slabs and degrade the bond, especially early on. Rather than wiping madly with a piece of cloth soaked in the stuff, I use a scrap piece of leather soaked in acetone to rub across the steel in front of the bolsters or slabs. The leather is stiff enough that you can control things really well and not have it sloshing around and soaking everything.

I'm sure there are many other good ideas out there. This is just mine I've used for several months.

Cheers.