Stefan, do you have or can you make anymore red Bakelite handles? That is seriously the prettiest thing I've ever seen.
Stefan, do you have or can you make anymore red Bakelite handles? That is seriously the prettiest thing I've ever seen.
Almost missed this one, sorry. Well, I am down to one piece of red bakelite and I wanted to stretch that out more and use it for accents, spacers etc rather than use it all for one handle. I can have a look if I find more, but my original source has dried up. I will look around a bit and see what I can find.
Stefan
Here's the thing: I had bought some bakelite rods that were sold as antique (i.e. 1930s or 40s) new old stock. Everything I could find out about them led me to believe that they are the real thing. This material was sold quite expensively and is mostly used for jewelery nowadays. Now, bakelite is basically the first mass-produced plastic, so it is not very complicated to produce that with today's means. If you look around, you see a lot of 'antique' bakelite offered that comes from China, Thailand, or Turkey. To be honest - I do not trust those sellers to provide the real old material and I am not willing to pay high prices for a product that may not be what I expect.
So, I have some materia left that I believe to be old bakelite, and there should be some in blue, grey, red, and brown - but limited quantities in all of these. If you are looking for the 'old and unique' in the material, that is what you would want. I have been selling those for much less than I should, considering they are often at least as expensive as premium wood pieces - another reason why I want to limit them a bit and use them mostly for accessories.
Now, if you are after the optics and like the looks but don''t care about the 'old' aspect, I have seen (but not yet systematically researched) modern acrylic rods with some marbeling that will be just as easy to work with, come out to the same smooth shine, and will be very close in appearance to the old bakelite. But it is new plastic - or better 'manmade material' (that way I can charge more). If I see interest in those materials, I'll be happy to source and stock a few, they cost a fraction of what I paid for the old stuff.
Stefan
That's what I thought when I saw it. Oh how sexy it would be lol.
Stefan, the real stuff has a very distinct smell if you run it under warm water for about 10s. You can also tell real from fake by taking some 409 cleaner on a qtip and rubbing it on a conspicuous part of the Bakelite. The qtip will turn a yellowy color - just in case you run across more in the future.
If I can't sweet talk you out of a full handle, maybe I can sweet talk you into making a handle using some of it for accents?
I need 3 wa handles in total but my first priority is my new improved baby![]()
If you are looking for more you should look up bakelite AK-47 and AK 74 furniture. That is the real deal stuff if you can find it, but I doubt it would make a whole handle. You could definitely cut it up to use as accents though.
I love me some bakelite. It is so cool.
"Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something." -Jake the Dog
My mother is a big bakelite jewelery collector, there are a few guys with hoards of bakelite from the day... big rods of all kinds of cool shapes! I would love a handle or two with maybe a bakelite furrel! Do you mount handles???