I just finished pinning up my first set of scales. I made them from black and white acrylic. I started the other night and finished yesterday morning; did the pinning today. I did my best to apply a method JoeD taught at the last WNY meet, and modeled the scales off a vintage piece of horn.
I used a coping saw, belt sander, a file, some sandpaper, a drill press and my buffer.
Overall, I'm quite happy with how the scales came out. The curves are smooth and the wedge fits evenly.
Next time, I'd like to do a better job beveling the scales (tough, cause I did it by hand with a file), get the wedge pin more centered (tough because I drilled before I shaped, and didn't end up using the lines I drew), and taper the wedge more (now I know a better method to taper the wedge, so I'll try that next time).
I used brass rod and stacked 0 on top of 0W washers, and haven't polished the pins yet.
Anyway, here are some photos. Photos aren't great, and the scales look a little uneven because they rotated a bit.