bead / sand blasting after G10 scales are on?

ERIK KNIVES

ERIK KNIVES

Joined
Aug 17, 2010
Messages
883
I'm thinking no way, but if anyone has blasted a knife after attaching G10 scales, I would like to hear about it.

EA
 
Ive done it a bunch of times, it actually works just fine. the g10 actually gets a nice texture as well as the blade.

my personal knife was blasted with the g10 scales attached, I wouldnt focus on the handle while blasting because you might put a valley in it but other than that I would recommend it.
 
Blast away! Done it many times - simple, quick and makes the G10 very "grippy". Just be aware of the erosion differential between your relatively hard mechanical fasteners and the softer G10.
 
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I use light pressure on G10 and would avoid using sand or abrasive media. Glass bead leaves a nice texture.
 
Awesome fellas, thank you for your insights. Not surprising that the military guys helped out here. I want to start blasting for some applications, but last night I scored (scratched) an otherwise nice bevel while doing handle work. It got me thinking about how to cover it. Blasting may not fix it, but it's going to function fine either way. I took some measures to clean it up, but it was one of those, " oh, great" moments.

here's the knife. The picture sucks but I don't have time to do better right now. I finally got the mutlti-cam G10 from Tracy for my son's knife design and it's time to handle that sucker up.

Glass bead or no-go? Justin obviously thinks so, have you, Jeff or J, used other media?

Thanks,

EA

IMG_1267.jpg
 
You can use abrasive media, but it scours the surface of the G10 off a lot faster than it removes steel, so the more aggressive your media and the higher your pressure, the faster it will leave your handle fasteners and the tang itself (on full tang knives) standing out from the grip material. Sand leaves a very coarse texture that I really don't care for on blades or handles. After trying a few medias, I found that a mix of fine glass beads cut with a fairly fine abrasive works best overall, but with the abrasive mixed in you have to be brief on the grip, or you will incur the issues I mentioned above.
 
I blast synthetics all the time in my Cerakote work. Plastic materials have a "rebound" to them so the grit really bounces off nicely, leaving a not so rough matte finish.
 
I bead blast all of my Benchmade G10 scales with ceramic grade glass beads at 60 psi and have incurred no issues. It leaves them a lot more grippy than that shiny finish that stock BM G10 scales come with. I make relatively quick passes from 8-10 inches away like I'm spraying paint and they come out looking great. I hope this helps...if only a little.
 
Justin King said:
You can use abrasive media, but it scours the surface of the G10 off a lot faster than it removes steel, so the more aggressive your media and the higher your pressure, the faster it will leave your handle fasteners and the tang itself (on full tang knives) standing out from the grip material. Sand leaves a very coarse texture that I really don't care for on blades or handles. After trying a few medias, I found that a mix of fine glass beads cut with a fairly fine abrasive works best overall, but with the abrasive mixed in you have to be brief on the grip, or you will incur the issues I mentioned above.
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other than trial and error for this particular problem (which I learned the hard way as well) as stated above, I agree. blast away! especially for hard use knives... it leaves G10 and micarta a little rougher and more "grippy"
 
Erik, you can also tape up the blade really well and then blast the handles if you want to keep the satin finish on the blade. A light sanding along the spine afterwards will bring the satin finish back to match the blade.
 
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