Thread: First try at pinned scales

Here's my Christmas day project. I wanted to see if I could replicate the pinned scale work often seen in ivory from the early 1800s, so I made some quick scales from brown horn. For each pin, a small hole is drilled in the scale, a piece of wire is inserted and peened, and then the whole thing is sanded and polished. I think it came out alright, although it's a pretty simple pattern. I'm not sure if I want to repeat the whole process as it was long and tedious, but I like the results. I might put the scales on a different razor, the John Barber is just there for a prop right now.

Looks very impressive though! Nice work on those!

Looks good! Why change blades, I would look at it as an opportunity for another "project".

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Looks good! Why change blades, I would look at it as an opportunity for another "project".

I have another blade that I think would suit it better, and as far as doing it again, for me it's like upholstering a chair. I did that once, and was better for it, but it would take some convincing for me to do it again

Looks very good! never realize that it was peened wire!

Quite Impressive. I like your design.

Sweet! Any chance you could post a close up of just the scales? What size and type of wire did you use?

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

When I used to do this type of work on guitars, I used superglue to hold the wire in. I don't know for sure that it's better or worse than peening, but it would save you a lot of time, which means you'd get to the next project quicker. :-) If you could work from the pack, you might be able to hammer the wire a bit flat (oval) at the the back side end, which would cause it to stick in when pushed in from the back, the add some superglue to hold it all together.

I love the look, and am going to try it on a razor I need to fix. Thanks for the thread!

Originally Posted by WhiteLion

Sweet! Any chance you could post a close up of just the scales? What size and type of wire did you use?

Thanks for sharing.

Randy

Here's a couple more pics. I had intended to use a silver wire from my hobby days but it turned out it had a copper core, so all the pins here are copper. As to diameter I'm not sure. Whatever it was I had about 1/8" to spare when I was done The bigger pins are an actual NiAg wire but again I'm not sure as to the diameter. I would estimate maybe 0.3-0.5 mm for the smaller.

The pattern I copied in parts from a number of original razors.

@mdarnton, I thought about that but wasn't sure how well the superglue would hold. This was actually pretty quick once I got the hang of it, and I left the wire unfinished from the clippers before I put it in so it acted kind of like a nail, and also expanded in the hole when I peened it. We'll see how well it holds up in the long run.

Thank you for sharing !!....A great idea and very well executed