Thread: Two big W&Bs plus my first try at custom horn scales

Unfortunately (for my bank account) I love wide blade Wade & Butchers. These two are my conscious attempt to say to myself "You don't need any more!".

The wedge is a monster 9/8 and very heavy. The Celebrated Hollow Ground is just over 8/8, but not quite wide enough to claim as 9/8 (shame!). The wedge took some work with greaseless compound on the bench grinder, but the CHG is all hand sanding with micro-mesh from 1500 grit through the progressions to 12000. Some patina left on it, but being hollow ground the blade edge is delicate and I didn't want to lose any width to the greaseless - hence the hand sanding only. Both were honed on Naniwa's - 1, 2, 5, 8 and 12k.

Also shown below is my first attempt at custom horn scales. I have a lovely little Wade & Butcher 6/8 hollow ground square point, but it was clothed in some contemporary black plastic scales. I decided to try my hand at scale making and get this really nice blade into something more authentic. Started with a single 160x60x3mm blank of blonde coloured buffalo horn. Hand cut it with a coping saw, then shaped with medium grit sandpaper, and finished with wet and dry (240,400,600,800,1200,2000) then white rouge on the buffer. The wedge is camel bone. I'm really really happy with how they turned out for a first attempt, and very pleasantly surprised that it didn't take too many hours - particularly as there was no machinery involved whatsoever - All done hand.

:-)