Thread: Working with Canvas Micarta

Someone saw the latest scales I did and asked about working with Micarta. I'll share my experience, which is limited. I'm sure some of the other folks that have used it will have comments as well.

Micarta is the name of a product line made my Norplex-Micarta, thus Micarta isn't a generic name like Kleenex.

I've worked with two of the products, both of which came from Masecraft. I have the tan canvas Micarta and the double red coral product.

The product is very easy to work with, other than one area, which is achieving a polished finish. The issue is that the sanding dust gets stuck between the strands of canvas and doesn't look right. This was much less of an issue with the double red coral.

The best way I came up with for dealing with this was to hand sand once the scales were shaped, utilizing a gun cleaning brush. This brush looks like a tooth brush, with much firmer bristles that a tooth brush.

I would sand 2-3 strokes, then use the brush to remove the dust, repeating. I sanded up 220 grit before polishing. Then, I would polish, sand and brush, then repeat.

As a side note, I'm going to sand to 220 grit on the next pair, do no further finishing, and see how the look after being handled for a while.

A mentor suggested dome green polishing compound and I ordered a small assortment. I loaded the buffing wheel with green compound before reading the directions and turned the fabric in the tan scales green. It took a loooonnnnnggggg time to correct that mistake. It only takes a little compound.

The green worked well on the double red coral. I'm sure it stained the the canvas as well, though it was dark and ended looking really good.

I really like the way that canvas Micarta looks. I'm going to try some of their other products as well, made with linen or paper.

One note for folks who are new at scale making. Masecraft sells a tremendous amount of G10 as well as Carbon Fiber with a G10 core.

G10 uses fiberglass. When sanded, the dust is very similar to asbestos. It's just not worth the hassle to use the G10 safely in my opinion.