Thread: J Allen & Sons near wedge in custom bone 'teeth'

A few months ago, I rescued a very sad looking J Allen & Sons near/wedge from an antiques store. The scales were shot, the blade looked near irretrievable, and I thought the least I could do was to try to help her out (always a sucker for a damsel in distress)... The blade required very many hours of hand sanding and polishing.




I have seen some very interesting shaped scales around here and I decided that I would come up with my own for this blade. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but the front tip comes forward slightly - I'm not sure a proper 'Spanish point', but something like it anyway. I have also been experimenting with various materials - various types of wood, horn, glass, and thought - why not bone. So, I sourced some bone in the country (NZ has a big beef industry - I won't say any more than that...), sun bleached it for several weeks, cut a rough shape with an angle grinder (I don't have an appropriate saw), and got to work on the band sander (one of my all-time favorite power tools). Soon, the 'tooth' took shape and I got to the hand filing and sanding to suit the blade.

I finished the bone scales with a black horn spacer (made from a broken old pair of horn scales), and brass microfasteners, sanded and polished to a nice shine. I wanted two pins at the front end, and one at the rear - along with an extra washer on the outside for a more intricate finish. I think it's a nice look and will do something similar again soon. Bone is wonderful to work with (apart from the initial smell of burning) and I will be making more. Comments and suggestions welcome, as always. The final step is to see how much steel I have to remove to have this lovely near/wedge shave ready...