Thread: Optimal scale thickness??

I haven't made bone or ivory scales so far, but I usually try to keep them about 2.5mm. It will depend on the material used since the main thing I look for is the flex and stability. As posted before you can change the balance in the scales really easy with the type of material used for the wedge. How far the scales stick out past the point will affect the balance also. I have seen some vintage razors with thin light scales, but were quite long. Almost an inch past the point. For how thin the vintage ivory scales are it still amazes me just how durable they really are. I would still rather have a razor blade heavy over scale heavy.

I go quite thin with my scales, I can't stand scales over .12, they drive me nuts. Some of my early work was like that and I just look at it in disgust now. I shoot for .080-.100. It is amazing how much more professional work looks when it is thinned out properly. I guess a lot of this is personal preference... ;D

Ok was out in the shop and had hands on my Calipers so I did some measuring for ya..

All Vintage scales, all pretty darn close on the measurments

Ivory checked about 15 sets range from .055 - .075 but most were at .065

Bone two sets both .075

Celluloid all over the place from some really small thin ones at .75 - .130

Horn Ranged quite a bit too from .090 - .142 (W&B) the thicker ones were the rounded type


The other thing that really makes or breaks the look for me is the wedge, it needs to be a wedge and it needs to be thin, big thick spacers IMHO just look off..

I measured a box of them too, at the outside end, they range from a small .030 to a large .065 most were at about .045 and not one of them was a spacer they were all wedged


Anyway hope that helps... I remember reading in the archives back when I first joined, somebody had asked about thickness and the answer was "If you start them at 1/8 and end them at 1/10 they should look good" when I measured back then it seemed to bear out, except for the Vintage Ivory

Great info,Thank you.

Great information. This thread was like getting hit in the head with a brick for me. I now am very conscious of the scale thicknesses. I had always went with a standard 1/8 in. Thanks for the great information

Is a fine line between scales being klunky VS elegant,I settled on around .080 for mine,most of all I want them to be historicaly correct to the blade. JMO

I was packing up razors just now and another test for checking ones work occured to me

If the razor fits back into the original coffin there is a good chance you are on the right track

All I can do is agree. Anything over 1/8 thickness just looks and feels weird. A bit of rounding can help, but not much. I try to cut my woods somewhere in the ballpark of 1/8, and than sand it to size.

I applaud the efforts of new members starting out making scales,Is all for the better,but note very few use a true wedge.They use a spacer so flex is not an issue with the thick scales.granted they look klunky,but hey,gotta start somewhere.
I think thickness is all dependant on the material,horn is pretty flexable so the big FBUs and such were pretty thick,bone and Ivory is not very flexable,thus the thiness. I made a Replacement Ivory scale for a member a couple mos. back, the orig was .050.thats really thin,almost to the point of being translucent,scary stuff when pinning. Is all good,whatever floats the boat.

I recently took apart a couple razors and remembered this thread when I seen the wedge. I noticed that the wedge wasn't really a wedge, but a spacer. The scales were still in a v-shape and flexed when placed with the spacer because the scales were tapered near the wedge end on the inside of the scales so that they sat in the v-shape and still forced the scales to flex. Not sure if they were originally designed like that or were modified later on, but seems to be a way around the flex issue when using spacers. I don't know if it would cause stability issues with natural materials, but seems to work with plastics.