Micarta manipulation

It was a short day yesterday, but I got some good things done.

Micarta sheets after sandblasting and before being cut up on my table saw.  The bottom sheet with the cutouts is 1/4" mild steel, used to make some tooling.

After cutting into handle slabs, I used my handle template to drill the rivet holes.

There are always little tricks to any process.  After a while, I figured out how to drill the holes without having to shift the C-clamps each time, and drilled two slabs at once.

Then I countersunk the holes.

Then I bolted the handle template to the individual slabs and used a trim bit on a router to trim, obviously.  :)

Followed by a 45 degree bevel using the other router.

The handle template is built so that the Micarta is trimmed leaving the butt of the tang exposed, providing an extra impact surface and protecting the Micaarta from damage if someone should do something like, oh, throw the darn thing.

Tomorrow I'll round the edges of the bevels, rivet the handles on, and sharpen, all going well.  If I pop my coat tails, I could probably do some sheaths too.