Thread: Replacing Double Arrow scale

Hey guys,

Just bought a brand new DA (white scale one from ebay). Any ideas what I could use for a scale?

Hi Dups!

Hope I don't talk your ear off here.

You have many, many options. It all depends on your interests, skills, tools and funds.

No doubt you've browsed around the forum, and seen that you can go anywhere from ordering a ready-made set of scales from one of the vendors on this site to making your own from a synthetic or natural material where the finished product is limited only by your imagination.

If you don't want to "roll your own" or have limited tools and/or skills, order from a vendor. If you want something a little more distinctive, look in the gallery of the workshop, see if anyone's work tickles your fancy. Some members offer their services in the classifed pages here - shoot them a PM to see if they'd be interested in whipping up something for you.

You will also find many excellent tips about scale making in the workshop section of this forum.

If you have the inclination to jump in with both feet and craft your own, decide if you want to work with wood, plastics, or other exotic material. Remember to take what tools you have to work with into account.

I've tried plastics (acrylics), wood, bone, and horn. I like working with them all, but I'm having a little better luck with plastics so far. It may be different for you.

If your craft skills aren't great, work with more inexpensive materials first so that if you make too many mistakes on a set, you'll learn from them without it costing you too much.

Nothing like blowing a wad of cash by "FUBAR-ing" a set of mammoth ivory blanks (Nah, at my current skill level, I couldn't afford trying to work with that stuff).

I have seen outstanding work done here with inexpensive woods available at your hardware store. Just remember to select or design your scales to protect the edge of your blade. The rest is up to you

Hope my rambling answer has helped you some.

I’ve got a couple of Double Arrows I purchased with the intent of getting a set of seven and doing my own rescaling whenever I get my wood shop back and a whole host of other “round tuit” conditions. At this point I think the blades are OK, a terrific newbie value, but certainly not collector worthy. And I can’t distinctly remember when one of the Double Arrows got chosen as the day’s shaving implement – to many others are so much better. In addition there was a custom rescaled DA or Wapi on Ebay that did not even get reasonable offers for a custom scale job. So I would not sink a lot of money into a DA rescale unless you personally really like the blade and don’t equate it’s value to the dollars you can get for it. But still, one of these days I will be rescaling mine with some sort of hardwood.

Real wood. Satin finish. Ummm.