Show your mods!

[RoBoTech]

Brittle to me means if you tighten a scale screw and it cracks like cold taffy.
But, that's me.

[jackknifeh]

Brittle to me means if you tighten a scale screw and it cracks like cold taffy.
But, that's me.

I'd agree. I have some small pieces of kirinite left over. I am going to drill some holes in it in solid color places as well as where the color changes and tighten small bolt/nuts on it and see what happens. I'll also try putting a little force on the material like I'm trying to bend it. I'll let you know what happens later today.

Jack

[jackknifeh]

Finished scale with holes/countersink in solid color areas and where the color changes. There is no bending force or pressure at all on the scales. The screws are just snug enough to hold the scale in place. I don't even snug them enough to make me think they won't work themselves loose over time. I use loctite to make sure they don't work themselves loose. My only concern with this though is I didn't want to take a chance of stripping threads. I wasn't concerned about the kirinite. I also used a 2lb hammer and hit my Sage4 on each side real hard to see how the scales held up. As you can see they still look good. The blade won't close though. Oh well. I'm the only one with a fixed blade Sage4.

The next two show a crack directly over the toothpick. The crack popped just as the second screw caused the kirinite to touch the wood.


Look at the pattern in the picture above and the next two. The pattern doesn't stay the same through the material. This may matter.


In the next two shots the crack occurred not where the toothpick is. I didn't happen at the first line of lighter color. It happened on the next line and cracked all the way through as shown in the last picture.




I don't know what can be determined here. Nothing cracked until there was FAR MORE pressure applied to the material than ever should be. I don't think there is a flaw in any of the pieces I broke. I believe I ABUSED the material. Does anyone notice anything relevant?

PS edit:
I don't think the cracking I caused would indicate this material is brittle. The kirinite bent far more than I would expect a "brittle" material to bend. Other's may feel differently. When a material is considered brittle could be different with different people.

[thog94]

Had I known that my post was going to generate this type of discussion, I would of started a new thread. Anyway when I attempted to make my scales I drilled all my holes with a drill press with the original scales on top. All of the holes that I drilled were slightly smaller than I needed. As soon as a hole was drilled a machine screw and nut were put on so the pieces didn't move. That was my method. I had mentioned that I measured the holes just because I wanted to make sure that they were the same distance from the edge as each other. You may or may not be able to tell from my original picture that the spine was flush with the scales.

I don't think that I did anything wrong but who knows. Maybe it was a bad piece or batch, but I don't think that the split happening on the color seam is a coincidence.

Jack, I also find it interesting that our pieces broke in different areas. Your comment about the coloring not going all the way to the other side is also correct, none of my patterns are symmetrical in the slightest or should I say stay consistent from one side to the other. Where mine cracked was where pressure is exerted. It even split that the angle that the color was at. There split is clean as in the lighter color is all on the bottom and none of it showing in the upper part. Now I'm interested to know how this is made and if using different colors affects the bonding properties.

As far as heat is concerned, I don't have a thermometer but I do have a torch. One of my original ideas was to try and heat it up enough to get it "soft". I was then going to try and put it in a vise to see if I could get a grip pattern. I still might try it out, at this point I have nothing to lose.

As far as being brittle, one word can easily describe that, NO.

[jackknifeh]

Had I known that my post was going to generate this type of discussion, I would of started a new thread. Anyway when I attempted to make my scales I drilled all my holes with a drill press with the original scales on top. All of the holes that I drilled were slightly smaller than I needed. As soon as a hole was drilled a machine screw and nut were put on so the pieces didn't move. That was my method. I had mentioned that I measured the holes just because I wanted to make sure that they were the same distance from the edge as each other. You may or may not be able to tell from my original picture that the spine was flush with the scales.

I don't think that I did anything wrong but who knows. Maybe it was a bad piece or batch, but I don't think that the split happening on the color seam is a coincidence.

Jack, I also find it interesting that our pieces broke in different areas. Your comment about the coloring not going all the way to the other side is also correct, none of my patterns are symmetrical in the slightest or should I say stay consistent from one side to the other. Where mine cracked was where pressure is exerted. It even split that the angle that the color was at. There split is clean as in the lighter color is all on the bottom and none of it showing in the upper part. Now I'm interested to know how this is made and if using different colors affects the bonding properties.

As far as heat is concerned, I don't have a thermometer but I do have a torch. One of my original ideas was to try and heat it up enough to get it "soft". I was then going to try and put it in a vise to see if I could get a grip pattern. I still might try it out, at this point I have nothing to lose.

As far as being brittle, one word can easily describe that, NO.

When you said "measured" I thought you meant measured the distance from one hole to the next one. Then there is the distance from the edge, etc. Sounds like you did it as good as anybody. Definatly as good as me. :)

Getting a grip pattern or your hand by making the material soft would be cool. Don't know if it would work but a material where this is possible would be great. Talk about a custom fit grip. :)

[thog94]

Getting a grip pattern or your hand by making the material soft would be cool. Don't know if it would work but a material where this is possible would be great. Talk about a custom fit grip. :)

Well I wouldn't recommend putting heat to it. I took our tiny hand held torch, (which I would consider it to be an equivalent to a nice cigar lighter as far as the heat) and it didn't take long at all for it to get soft. All I can say is that it started to bend like rubber does. I just heated it for no more that 5-10 seconds at best with the flame just touching the kirinite. It then went into the vise.

As you can see from the pictures it was easily indented without much pressure, but the kirinite easily warped. The other picture you can see how much of the oil sweated out.

A few things that I did learn from this was that it cooled off really fast and it's now a lot more flexible. It also never felt hot like metal gets when heated. I don't know if it dispersed the heat real well or it just heated it the right way.

Out of curiosity I decided to put it back on the drill press. It started to drill out fine, but then heard some cracking. On the back side it didn't come out clean on either hole. So the heat definitely affects the property of kirinite.

[Bladekeeper]

Without questioning the info you put in the post and the way it cracked heat wouldn't IMO have caused the crack .
It would've warped as you state but looking at the holes in your pics you can see the sink from the drill has left a mark .
When you drilled the holes were they very tightly clamped to the point when you drilled in the pressure on the scale was trying to make the scale spin with the rotation of the drill ?.
This would obviously cause enough to crack it just a thought thought though and one you probably have ruled out .

[hoytshooter16]

Delica 4 "color swap".

[hoytshooter16]

Original, before the color swap.

[appliancejunk]

The green with black blade and hardware looks awesome!

[hoytshooter16]

The green with black blade and hardware looks awesome!

Agreed! However the blade on the foliage is not centered and pretty far off. When I flick it, its causing the blade to contact the FRN slightly and causing scuff marks. The spyder edge on the black couldn't be centered more perfectly. But as you can guess I want to carry the black on foliage. Dont know whats causing this, other than this isn't how it was intended to be mated up.

[ourgon]

Black blade Endura&Delica IV have blade like Endura III?

[BOOMER52]

[jackknifeh]

I made this handle to replace the black FRN handle on my Dragonfly2.



I know. I screwed the clip up.



I chose this material for my first try because it's real cheap. Now that I feel better about it I hope to do more handles in pretty materials.

Jack

[jackknifeh]

Beautiful. I love that.

How do that? What tools? Do you have them anchored or is this completely free hand? I've tried stuff like that free hand and it looks TERRIBLE. :eek: And that's being kind.

PS
Wait! I assume you worked on the knife handle. Or did you make the rock? :) Love the background. Is that smoke or am I having a flashback from the 60s? :)

[BOOMER52]

Those scales are done by a CNC router I built. The ROCK just happens to be my favorite outdoor pic location on bright sunny days...! Can't take credit for it...!

Now the smoke shall remain nameless... and of unknown origin...! I'm sticking with that answer... but I will tell you it's PhotoShop'd in...!

[Bladekeeper]

Those scales are done by a CNC router I built. The ROCK just happens to be my favorite outdoor pic location on bright sunny days...! Can't take credit for it...!

Now the smoke shall remain nameless... and of unknown origin...! I'm sticking with that answer... but I will tell you it's PhotoShop'd in...!

Does that smoke originate from a substance the same colour of the scales by any chance :D .
Just kidding they are great looking scales Boomer really nice .

[JAYJAY]

I am not as talented as a lot of you guys but here is my first attempt to etch a blade :D

[img][IMG]http://i1300.photobucket.com/albums/ag9 ... 940102.jpg[/img][/IMG]

[Jazz]

Very cool, JAYJAY! How did you get that pattern?

[jackknifeh]

I agree with Jazz. How did you do that?