Thread: Can horn or wood scales be dyed ?

I've been experimenting with using shoe polish to dye horn. I'm not ready to recommend it yet, but it's very promising.

Some horn that's been in especially bad shape I've painted with India ink and sealed with CA glue, and that works very well. But it requires the sealing or the ink washes off and you really don't want to finish shaving and have your hands stained.

Would be an improvement from stained with blood !

Wouldn't Shoe dye work better then polish ?

Originally Posted by DaveN

Would be an improvement from stained with blood !

Wouldn't Shoe dye work better then polish ?

Possibly. If I get some free time over the weekend I'll give it a shot and post results.

I went for polish because ... I had some of that in the house. I don't think the bottle of RIT is black, though... Easy enough to get and try, however!

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Certainly worth a try - old horn gets a bit fibrous and 'wooly' in the top layer due to scuffs, abrasion, drying out, etc. This helps to scatter light and make the horn look much lighter. Lightly sanding it, buffing it with tripoli powder in oil (or going up to very fine grades of paper if you can't get tripoli) and letting a film of neats foot oil sit on the scales (or filling up a thin jar with neatsfoot, opening the blade and submerging the scales in the oil) will make it look darker, shinier and more like it did when first made into scales.

Regards,
Neil

+1 on this you can also finish the shine with light metal polish. makes them real shiny, and if the were black to begin with the will be black once again. If they were originally translucent and they are losing color you will need to redye- which i personally wouldn't recommend... I mean why mess with something thats 150 years old? You should only hope to look that good 100+ years from now! Or you can try my sac-religious method of taking the old ones off and making your self a nice pair of.... dare i say it..... new ones! Replicas, custom what ever!!! YMMV.

Originally Posted by JoeLowett

+1 on this you can also finish the shine with light metal polish. makes them real shiny, i swear!

Oh yeah, I regularly use Mothers or Maas on scales. I use it on metal. I use it on celluloid. I use it on acrylic and lucite and horn and bone and ivory and my own hands. It makes pretty much anything shinier. Anything but my hands.

I have this "Back to Black" stuff I bought when I had a Vintage Goldwing GL1200. It was a creamy color but when you rubbed it into the black plastic parts around the fairing it made the faded black darker and shinier. Maybe I'll give that a try as it is mild stuff. You all made me think of that with the metal polish which I also have. Thanks !

Originally Posted by Voidmonster

Oh yeah, I regularly use Mothers or Maas on scales. I use it on metal. I use it on celluloid. I use it on acrylic and lucite and horn and bone and ivory and my own hands. It makes pretty much anything shinier. Anything but my hands.

I might be wrong Zak, but I think Sharptonn uses it on his halo...?

Regards,
Neil

Watch out when using any colored polish like rouge and such, the horn/bone is porous and it's hard to clean it of.
I would also be careful with any petroleum based polish, get a crap piece of horn to test on first.

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

I might be wrong Zak, but I think Sharptonn uses it on his halo...?

Regards,
Neil

Why yes, Neil, I do! Quite an astute observation. I surely thought no one noticed!

I know this is a older thread but I have some black horn scales I am putting on a old Greaves very near wedge. I have been rubbing a very small amount of Fromm strop dressing every day for a week After a couple of hours I buff tha dressing off with a old T- shirt & it really looks pretty good. I also just started on a pre 1881 hollow ground W&B. I just rubbed the dressing into the scales for about ten minutes with my hands. I have nice & soft hands now& a good looking razor. I know pictures but my grand kids aren't here to help me
! I have also used car wax on all kinds of scales with great results.
Slawman