Thread: Restauration advice request

Originally Posted by Mauri

Total length is 30,5 cm., width is 3,2 cm, ivory is 7,7 cm. (the part that extends out of the strop, inside of it I don't know) long and 3 cm large. Thickness off the strop is 1,5 cm., of the ivory is 0,5 cm. I found a piece of leather today, I'll post a picture ASAP!

Thanks Mauri,have actually drawn up some plans to make one,will use ebony for the main board and pin the ivory handle to it,may use Roo to keep it as thin as possible.
Biggest hurdle will be making a leather sheath,maybe make a wood form,sew the sheath than insert the form with the leather wet,keep us posted,should be fun.
Will have the handle scrimshawed with something.

I found this leather at my shop yesterday. It is quite soft, the rough side is softer than the flat one, which would be better to use?

If you have an 'old style' shoe makers shop in your area you might want to stop in with it and see what he suggests. If you're lucky he's from Europe or Mideast and knows what you need.

Looks to have some sort of finish on it,Neil may have an answere for you.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Looks to have some sort of finish on it,Neil may have an answere for you.

Yes, I thought that too. Some finishes have a kind of plastic sprayed over them that look very like that and which makes the skin side unsuitable for stropping - it 'drags' a bit and ultimately wears away, leaving patches with varied resistance to the passage of the blade, not a nice feeling! The flesh side looks a bit coarser than I would like too, but maybe the softness will make up for that. If in doubt, why don't you get a bit of plank and stretch and tack the leather over it and try it out - might be perfectly OK.

If you do need to source more leather, ask for a vegetable tanned leather and not a chromed one.

Regards,
Neil

Mauri, in your part of the world,you should have access to some of the finest leather available at not alot of cost.
I think your project is worthy of the best,JMO.
Moving along with mine at the moment I have all cut and roughed out,thx for the demensions, they were very helpful.

Mauri,Did you ever get yours done? Thx for the demensions, heres my rendition in the rough still.

Is that real ivory? Coming alone nice, keep us posted.

Yes it's real,decided to use a piece of oak as the the leather backing board.will ebonize the side flats before I glue the leather in place.
Epoxied in an ebony bisquit to connect the handle to the oak,could not figure any other way to do it,seems stable, lot more work to do.
Will also give the ivory some rapid aging.

Great job Pixelfixed!
I had no time to work on mine yet, but I found a better piece of leather to use, more subtle also. It's my old wallet so the leather is very good. It served me for ten years and I had to change it because it was falling apart at the joints, but the main parts of it were still good. I will post pictures for sure as soon as I can work on it. What I still have to understand, is how to cut the leather and how to position it on the strop, so if you would post pictures of your work in progress it will surely help me!