Thread: Mother of pearl scales - variants

Inspired by works like Maggard's and UKRob's, MOP became an obsession of mine, so for the past year I've been experimenting variants on this theme. Being aware about flaws and imperfections, I have started to strip everything down and tried to correct wherever possible addressing contour, polish etc. As I'm getting along I'll post gradually the results. Imperfections are still evident (e.g. some panels are not of equal size etc) but this is how we get better, being aware about previous errors.
For the first two I didn't take picture before corrections, but I'll keep that in mind for the following ones.

Wade & Butcher 6/8 - white MOP, nickel- silver lining, ornate silver dividers, lead wedge, silver plated washers



Frederick Reynolds 6/8 - black MOP (with defects of material - to keep cost down), brass lining, ornate brass dividers, lead wedge, gold plated washers

Nice work. Also on my I want to learn it list. All in good time.

Very nice!
Making something like doesn't seem like easy work.
With liners and MOP....are scales heavier than normal? I've never handle MOP scales like the one you' posted.

The scales are rather on the heavy side, I believe to be more suitable for more plain razors like wedges, 1/2's, 1/4's hollows, so rather heavy blades. The MOP is a versatile material, quite strong I would say, easy to work with. Initially I was afraid and I used cheap, thin blocks (thickness up to 1 mm) and I had no bad events while handling it.

Here is a photo of a razor with thin (thickness varying 0.8 - 1 mm), cheap MOP panels



Mop can be used as thin as here



Sometimes it does crack, reason why I prefer to use wide washers to distribute the pressure and prevent unwanted events (using wide washers I could literally hammer down while pinning to get the tightness I wanted)



To make a pair of such scale can be laborious (see Maggard's or UKRob's artistic work) or fairly easy once simplified - I'll post a whole serie of photos of the process soon as I intend to make some new ones in the near future.

I have some razors with MOP tangs and they are my favorite decoration. I would love to see your process making these. They look outstanding!!!

Here are some I've made. I used old hand fans for MOP parts.

Are the scales you called "cheap MOP" the freshwater variety? I think they are quite elegant, if less flashy.



"Here is a photo of a razor with thin (thickness varying 0.8 - 1 mm), cheap MOP panels"

Most likely the "cheap MOP" (I called it this way because I didn't quite know what MOP was and because it was the cheapest available at that time) is a freshwater variety. It has a more satin-like finish and contrasts very well with ornate accessories.

Mother of Pearl comes in degrees of quality with AAA being the best - price is also dependent on how it is finished before being sold - for razors you ideally want something that is flat.

My first experiment with white MOP - and I have to admit that I shamelessly copied a tutorial of Brad Maggart - was laid on NiAg liners. Although the end result looked very good, they are heavy and not the best balanced - but that doesn't really affect the shave.

The second attempt in black MOP was attached to thin G10 liners - the balance is much better. G10 in this thickness is not available in the UK - I found some at Alpha Knife Supplies - however, they don't care to ship overseas unless you pay with a bank transfer which makes it too expensive. Fortunately, I have a contact who orders for me so I now have a few different thicknesses.