Bruno C. Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Hi, I'm working on a sheath for a knife I made, and I want to incorporate a piece of iron wood (found in AZ), into the sheath. It will be a small piece that will basically be used to "catch" the point if it is re-sheathed improperly. I want to use iron wood to minimize the denting (vs. manzanita or oak), should such an action happen. It's the best I have available at the moment. Really dense, heavy stuff. My question is, what would be the best glue for a flat piece of iron wood to a flat piece of Manzanita wood (a local hard wood)? The manzanita is on the top (knife entrance?) part of the sheath, and I want to glue a piece of Iron wood on top of it. From some googling, i guess iron wood is somewhat oily, so I wasn't sure TiteBond II would work, so I was thinking JB Weld ? Only other thing I have available is Gorilla Glue. Would any of these work, or do I need something else? Does anyone have any experience with this, or these woods ? I can theoretically glue around the piece of iron wood with other wood to wood contact, but I would rather it not wiggle in the future, and I need to add another piece of manzanita on top of the iron wood. Btw: this knife is destined for a salty, watery environment. And it's oddly shaped with the need of a wood sheath, so I kind of want the wood(point catch) in there, as opposed to having it wide open and again, wiggly. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, -Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Yates Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Gorilla Glue /wood version is my recommendation. Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metal99 Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 I would use a good name brand epoxy with a slow cure time 30 minutes or longer. Arizona desert ironwood glues fairly well. Just make sure that it is roughed up very well with some course sand paper. JB weld would work as well but I have had pretty good luck with epoxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Smith Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 JB weld, if memory serves, is an epoxy with steel dust mixed in for strength, so I would say just a regular long set epoxy between the woods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkrankow Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 After dry fitting using coarse sandpaper wash the mating surfaces with acetone to remove surface oils and improve bonding of oily or resinous woods. I have not bonded those particular woods, but I have had good success with slower epoxies after proper surface prep and washing on other resinious woods. Phil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 All those glues would work IMO the Gorilla glue would be the weakest. Ideally I would use a glue and wrap... if you glue over the wrap as well your sheath will be extremely tough! The epoxies are pretty good as coatings so they work well over wraps and you can also finish the wood that way. You want to get a good coating on the wood if it will be exposed to moisture.. otherwise expansion and contraction from drying cycles will weaken the glue joints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Yates Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 After dry fitting using coarse sandpaper wash the mating surfaces with acetone to remove surface oils and improve bonding of oily or resinous woods. I have not bonded those particular woods, but I have had good success with slower epoxies after proper surface prep and washing on other resinious woods. Phil The best worded explanation i have seen yet . Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son_of_bluegrass Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 Any wood glue will work if the fit and surface prep is correct. The fit should be tight (no gaps). For surface prep on oily woods, wipe with acetone just before glueing and allow the acetone to evaporate. Coarse sanding may help or may not. The bit thing is DON"T rely just on glue. As wood expands and contracts with moisture uptake and loss the glue will be stressed in ways it doesn't handle well (type of glue doesn't matter for this). There are joints that don't rely strictly on glue or mechanical fasteners (nails, screws). If you try just glueing it will fail faster than if the joint is made so it doesn't rely on glue to hold it together. ron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Yates Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 I use a simple epoxy and pin my handles they look good a function like the Devil having a party in Heill . Sam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno C. Posted November 12, 2012 Author Share Posted November 12, 2012 Thank you All for the replies. Looks like JB weld will do the trick with proper preparations. I wasn't sure about the TiteBond. I'll give it a try and see how it works. Using a wrap around the sheath didn't occur to me, since the wood I am using is really nice looking, but I will keep that in mind for future projects. I'm using a combination of Black Walnut for the main body of the sheath with some nice Red manzanita for the top portion which will house the locking mechanism. The ironwood will be more of a hidden piece, with only slight visibility, as I plan on glueing more wood onto the entire surface so I get a more of a one piece feel to it. Still need to add some beltloops, thinking about brass. All the wood I have been using has been sitting in my shop in the desert for the last 3+ years, so it is Very dry. But, none of it has been stabilized, which I'll have to look into howto for future projects. So, I was planning on using Tung Oil for a finish on the entire sheath, inside and out. Wish I did the inside first before I glued it, but this has been a sort of seat of my pants type of project, with many modifications since I started. So I was just gonna Tung Oil the heck out of the whole thing. But since, I am not using stabilized wood, and the entire knife+sheath will be traveling from the super dry desert, to basically the Ocean, I'm somewhat concerned now, with the whole mention of expansion and contraction of the woods. Would Tung oil be sufficiant ? Or should I use something else to finish the sheath ? Linseed oil or something more artificial ? I found some cool clear acrylic spray paint at home depot a while back that I used on some cow bones I found in the desert, went on easy, made it shiny, and is totally clear. Made a cool halloween mask. Thanks all for the replies. -Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rich Hale Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 All of the big knife makers supplly houses selle epoxies that have a good track record with all kinds of woods...contact them and get their thoughts... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfootnampa Posted November 12, 2012 Share Posted November 12, 2012 Tung oil will be poor protection from moisture. IME only epoxy encapsulation or a penetrating two-part finish like Kwik-Poly will offer reliable waterproofing to wood that is exposed to lots of moisture. OOOPs also include stabilization in that short list. Not really a lot of choices I know... but that is reality... lots of testing has been done and water vapor in particular is very difficult to seal out. People were asking me to finish wood countertops with UNDERMOUNT sinks!!!! At the time (several years back) I had no good answers for them... now I'd use Kwik-Poly and overcoat with "Breakthrough" acrylic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
son_of_bluegrass Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Real tung oil was traditionally used to make boats water resistant. But liquid water is a bit different than water vapor. If you use real tung oil not something called "tung oil finish" it should do ok. Some "tung oil finishes" don't actually have any tung oil in them. It does take a while for real tung oil to cure so you can expect one coat to take a week to a month (in cool damp weather it may take several months) to cure. If you're willing to build up 12 or 15 coats it does much better. Linseed oil offers a bit less protection and take just as long to dry. I've had good luck putting 15 coats of linseed oil on stuff but that means 6 or 8 months to complete the finishing. You could soak the sheath for several days in the oil so that it soaks deep into the pores of the wood. It won't fully cure as deep as it penetrates but will give the best results from oil for what you're describing. I'm not a bit fan of poly in any form. Aside from some of the 2 part ones I just haven't found poly to be durable. There are some 2-part wood finishes that aren't polyurethane based that get good reviews. Epoxies tend to give it a plastic look and feel in my opinion but do offer protection. One caveat, any film finish (poly, epoxy, lacquer, shellac, varnish) will eventually wear through or get scratched to reveal bare wood. As soon as that happens the protection is gone. The oils are a bit better in this regard as they soak into the wood. ron Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno C. Posted November 13, 2012 Author Share Posted November 13, 2012 I ended up using JB weld in the new putty form that they got out now. Couldn't find the tube stuff anywhere, so I think I used it all up on the knife handle. The tung oil I have is just that little bottled stuff I find at local hardware stores. Probably not the Tung oil son_of_bluegrass is talking about, as it does dry pretty fast out here in the desert. Usually 15-30 minutes, if not sooner. I think that is the stuff I'm gonna end up using to finish the sheath. Not the optimal solution, but hey the knife itself has a couple hairlines from the failed weld (gotta finish my darned power hammer :angry: ), and is far from perfect. So, I'm gonna finish it the best I can, and send it out to my friend for 'testing'. Calling it a Beta #1. In the future there are several things I would do different with the whole process. Probably would go all synthetic for the sheath and knife handle, something like micarta or a heavy stabilized wood atleast. And I'm always in envy of those with those fancy heat treatment oven, or even the home built ones. Maybe I'll sell a knife one day :wacko: As always, it has been a learning experience, and I Thank everyone for their input. I'll try to upload a pic, after my friend gets it, if they don't mind. -Bruno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Best finish for wood exposed to wet/dry cycles? Replace it with micarta and a heat formed kydex sheath. Really!---you can spend a lot of time and effort teaching your horse to swim but a seal will still do it better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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