Cloth / Canvas/ Cotton Micarta is made using a phenolic resin, which cures under heat and
pressure...layers of cloth saturated in the resin, and pressed in a mold and heated...

Paper Micarta uses the same method, but uses paper instead of a cloth material..

G10 is glass fibres and epoxy resin in pressure plates, and the epoxy cures with its own heat
and cure time...

The colours are dependant on the glass fibre colours and the resin colours...

cotton, linen, and cloth are all absorbent materials, and once saturated with the resin they
cannot react with moisture. As Yablanowitz stated, it's the phenolic resin that gives "original
recipe" Micarta it's grip. Bakelite, which is basically the phenolic resin without the paper or
cloth "filler" has the same "grippier when wet" property. Granted, not all Micarta today will
act that way, since Micarta is now nothing more than a trademark owned by Norplex that can
be applied to composites made with any type of resin.

G-10, on the other hand, is a NEMA specification, that calls for fiberglass cloth and a specific
type of epoxy resin and is only one of a number of similar specifications including G-3, G-11,
and FR-4 among others.

In the broadest sense, Micarta, CF composites, FRN, G-10, and the other NEMA composite
specs, are just modern examples of an ancient technology that began when someone discovered
that reeds mixed with mud made stronger bricks and walls than mud alone.

Composites can either be organized, like G-10, Micarta, and most CF composites, all of which
use a woven material of some kind for strength, or disorganized, like FRN, FRCP and some
forms of CF composites, which use short strands of fiberglass, carbon fiber, or some other
"thread" mixed with a resin of some kind.