Thread: First horn scales

Restoring this J. Allen & Sons. I was hoping to restore the tranparent horn scales, but cracked them taking out the pins. Shame, because they have numbers and letters stamped on 1 side - does that make it military? Also has a lead wedge.

I have a set of scale blanks in horn, but have never tried horn. Texas Knifemakers is in my town, so I get to sort for ones I like. I just did an initial hand sanding as below. The one mocked to the blade is wet to show the color better. I’ll definately want a gloss finish.

I’ll need to read around to figure out how to bend them a bit and finish them out.

I’m a little nervous about pinning them, after cracking the original scales. Anything I need to know about that?

Good on you! Nice first try and success to come!
~Richard

A couple of thoughts.
Nice start. The holes are usually easiest to place before you get to far into it. A gloss finish requires quite a bit of wet sanding. I find cool water and frequent splashing under a fast dripping tap works well. If you want very high gloss you can sand up to 2K and polish by hand from there. I have a low speed high torque drill that I put in a vice and run a 3” buffing wheel and some polishing cake so I often drop the hand sanding after 1K and get a reasonable gloss.
Being able to pick through the bin is a serious luxury and I am very envious. I cannot see the numbers on the old scales, but generally they were hot stamped for the military with letter and numbers.

White rubbing compound on a buffer will bring the shine out.

The original scales can be repaired. IMHO.
Though the ones you chose are really nice, I prefer to keep them as original as possible. Lots of cool things can be done to horn.

The black horn with white streaking in my experience is the most stubborn horn to work. It really has a mind of its own.

Originally Posted by mycarver

The black horn with white streaking in my experience is the most stubborn horn to work. It really has a mind of its own.

yep, they do have a way of making you very humble. I wonder how Aust does those fantastic black/white masterpieces.

As with any horn the only way to really take the fight out of it is heat. And lots of it. You can make horn do whatever you want as you can see here. 90 degree bend with a half twist. And if I want to I can straighten it out again

How do you heat them up Carver?

It took time and elbow grease, but I was able to get a really smooth glossy finish with micro mesh pads.