Thread: New scales on a wapi

Hi,

Not exactly a restore but I made some scales for my wapi, I need to redo them as I made them a little short but they are ok for now and as a first attempt I'm quite happy. I thought I'd have a play with the shape what do you think ?

Barney

Interesting shape, but I think I like it.

Call me Ishmael; it sort of looks like a minature Sperm whale swimming along the surface of the ocean!

Originally Posted by mrbhagwan

Interesting shape, but I think I like it.

Call me Ishmael; it sort of looks like a minature Sperm whale swimming along the surface of the ocean!

Noooo, come oooon!

It is a nice first attempt! Well done!

It's cool...I really like what you did with the design...it looks clean, and the lines are interesting...keep up the good work

Thanks for the encouragement.

Unfortunately this is about the limit of my creative ability. I can do the physical work but I don't have too much in the way of artistic ability.

I used it this morning and I think I might need to tweak the end by the tang - it is a little weird to hold when stropping. As others have said the wapi is definitely much easier to use without all the weight of the original scales. It is even more my favorite razor now.

Barney

If you don’t mind some constructive criticism/advise/observations…

You’re right, you may have to work on the tang part of the scale. It is set at a steep angle so the rest of the scale is like a pistol grip, when you open the razor and try to strop or hone the “pistol grip” will swing like a weight on the end throwing the motion off balance.
Also the tang end of the scale may be a little wide for the tang of the blade… I don’t mean the thickness of the scale because you got that right (looks like 1/8”).

Interesting design though, looks original… though I may not have seen all that many scale designs, with a little modification this could be a great scale… nice.

Tell us more about the material and process. It looks real good. You should be proud and remember it's just the start of a great journey.

Originally Posted by smythe

If you don’t mind some constructive criticism/advise/observations…

You’re right, you may have to work on the tang part of the scale. It is set at a steep angle so the rest of the scale is like a pistol grip, when you open the razor and try to strop or hone the “pistol grip” will swing like a weight on the end throwing the motion off balance.
Also the tang end of the scale may be a little wide for the tang of the blade… I don’t mean the thickness of the scale because you got that right (looks like 1/8”).

Interesting design though, looks original… though I may not have seen all that many scale designs, with a little modification this could be a great scale… nice.

It's not so much the steep angle and the scales have very little weight so there is no off balance aspect. It is the corner that points to the edge when the scales are open and the peek in the middle - they are kinda too pointy and stick into my hand a little and the also rub as you turn the blade over at the end of the stropping lap, it is this rubbing that is the biggest problem it causes a slight delay which totally threw off my timing.

Originally Posted by TOB9595

Tell us more about the material and process. It looks real good. You should be proud and remember it's just the start of a great journey.

Grief this is going to be long -

They are made from 3mm clear polycarbonate. I had another wapi that I'd manage to wreck honing (it had a bad warp and I made a bad decision to try and hone it out - it didn't work and I chewed through a load of the blade) so I traced round the scales from that and the blade itself.
Turns out though that my new wapi is a different size - it's got a longer blade (by about 1/4") and tang - this is why they are a little on the short side.

Then I drew in my shape over the top, cut it out and drew round it onto the polycarbonate (it has a protective film front and back. Initially I tried using a hacksaw to cut it but this stuff is hard so I resorted to using a dremel (B&Q clone) with a circular saw blade attached. Once I had my two rough pieces I clamped them together with a couple of small bulldog clips.

Then I sanded it down, I used a sheets of sandpaper on glass for the two straight edges and a drum sanding tool on the dremel for the curvy bits (I ended up looking like a ghost ) The wedge is just another bit of polycarbonate sanded thinner - boy did that take long time and the tops of my finger and thumb are smeared over the sandpaper, next time I'll sand down a bigger bit so I've got something to hold and then cut to size. Pins are some 2mm pozi countersunk domed topped machine screws (a4 stainless too ), some half height nuts and a washer either side of the blade pivot.

Barney