Thread: Want Feedback on Scales

Happily grinding away (literally sometimes) in my shop here lately. Feels good to be back restoring blades and scales again!

My latest project (among many others) is a French blade that was in need of healing that also had a set of unusable scales. After sanding and buffing away rust, stains, and pits, the blade is now close to being done. Then the issue of scales arose... A French blade with sort of a unique shape needed scales, and I wanted to create a set that was not only unique, but that fit the lines of the blade itself. So I went with what I saw in the blade, and tried to keep it as simple as possible while complimenting the lines of the metal. Here's what I came up with below. It's not yet complete (still have a micro-fastener holding the pivot pin end together, the end with the spacer needs better domed washers, and there's still many coats of beeswax to apply), but hope you can get the idea that I'm going for here. I also hope the indentations near the pivot pin area help the user hang onto the blade better when shaving.

The scales are ebony (the kind with a little grain and not the Gabon stuff that has sawdust that looks like black chalk dust). Also used a lead spacer and the pins will be all nickel/silver with domed stainless washers. Not much more simple that that. The scales have a radical curve or two and some unique bends near the pivot pin that you can see in the 4th photo.

Please let me know if you think this combo makes sense, and if the scales match the feel of the blade. Once it's done, I'll likely shave with it for a week and then pop it into the BST section here for someone else to own. But if it's just way too smooth, I'll hang onto it and depart with something else. I have way too many blades to ever use them all in this lifetime and my wife has decided it's time to seriously thin the herd - by about 700 blades. So I decided to have some fun while thinning the herd.

So, please take a look and let me know if this is on the right track for that blade, or, it's something I should use on something else.

ADDED NOTE: Sorry gents!! I thought I was posting this in The Workshop. Too late and too tired to be posting. No matter, you're mostly the same guys so the feedback should be the same.