Thread: Wade & Butcher in Bone

This is one I did not too long ago.
It's a 7/8 W&B, scaled in cow bone. Brass domed & stacked washers & pins.

This was my first experience with making my own blanks from bone. It will also be my last. For the amount of hassle, stink, and mess it's much easier to just buy the bone blanks.

I like the different shades of the bone.
Do you think it will darken out in certain areas?

The bone look great with the different color and patern and couldnt agree more about the bone blanks.

I think the bone is excelent choice for this blade. Hard work and nice work!

Nice idea, is there anything that you have to treat the bone with before or after the scales are made??

Originally Posted by HNSB

This is one I did not too long ago.
It's a 7/8 W&B, scaled in cow bone. Brass domed & stacked washers & pins.

This was my first experience with making my own blanks from bone. It will also be my last. For the amount of hassle, stink, and mess it's much easier to just buy the bone blanks.

Why was your experience so bad?
What tools did you use?
I use a dremel with the Vertical stand, and put a shop vac underneath the stand base.
No dust, no stink. And with the right dremel bits I can knock out a scale in about 2 hours.
I haven't worked with bone yet, but horn, poly and wood.

Originally Posted by souschefdude

Why was your experience so bad?

The bones are oddly shaped, and for the size of a bone you'd be surprised how little coplanar material there is, large enough to cut a scale out of.

I don't know if it was the best way to do it... I picked out the largest flat looking area and then ran it through my bandsaw on each side of the flat, to make it square enough to hold in a vice. I also had to sand a large enough flat in the bottom, approximately parallel to the top for it to sit properly. Then I put it on my mill, and facemilled the top surface flat, flipped it and milled the other side.
This all sounds pretty simple, but in practice it was a PITA.

Originally Posted by HNSB

This was my first experience with making my own blanks from bone. It will also be my last. For the amount of hassle, stink, and mess it's much easier to just buy the bone blanks.

Killing the cow is the part that I find to be a hassle, all that blood, not to mention gutting and skinning him ..........

Kidding aside Eric, nice job of work.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Killing the cow is the part that I find to be a hassle, all that blood, not to mention gutting and skinning him ..........

Gotta catch the dang thing first!
As big as they are, cows move pretty fast.

hhmmmmm ... steak....
Adam