Making Custom Scales

I recently bought a grab bag on various wooden pen blanks, roughly 3/4" x 3/4" x 6" to use as the base material for my scales. My first set actually turned out pretty good considering I was doing it all by hand and with no real idea what I was doing. However, their size doesn't leave me with much room for error or design choices. I should have just bought some thin stock that was already the right thickness. Anyway, my question is "Can I glue/epoxy the various blanks together side to side until I have enough to work with?" This would mean the different wood grains would be going across the width of the scales instead of lengthwise after I made my cuts to form the blanks. I realize this would probably look a bit on the ugly side with the different woods used, but would it hold up during the shaping and pinning process? Or is this a stupid question and I'm not making any sense?

I am familiar with the type of pen blanks that you speak of and there will be some obstacles with respect to gluing them together for scales. I am not saying that there is no way of doing it or that it cannot work, but unfortunately, it may not be worth all the trouble. Even if you were to dovetail or pin them under pressure you would still need to either plane or sand them down and this would likely interfere with your patchwork. This is not to mention your desire for ending up with something pleasing to the eye. My vote is that you go with the thin stock, and some that allows you enough length to get the job done. That is, unless you just want to experiment, have vast woodworking experience or are a glutton for punishment. Or perhaps all three. LOL Just one mans opinion. Best Regards Ken

Check these out they cut them down specifically for us razor guys :)


Thin Stock Lumber | Exotic Wood, Birdseye Maple, Curly Maple, Tiger Maple

Thanks to the both of you. The suggestions are appreciated. rangerdvs, I may go through with it and try anyway just to see what happens. If nothing else, I've got a new cutting board. gssixgun, thanks for the link. I remember browsing their selection before, but not why I didn't purchase. I think I'll buy from them next though. Maybe post my progress somewhere.

Again, thanks for the input.

Best to get them cut to desired thickness and length - but since you have that already, I've joined some pieces using epoxy on a brass or copper backing. You can also embed them into some other thin material and epoxy them all together. Or, get something around an inch or two thick and slice off your scale material yourself. But in the end it's just easier to have the merchant send you 1/8 or 3/16 slabs that are at least 12" long.

Nice. pre-sliced wood source. I might try that later, but in my case I have a few hunks of curly maple left over from stocking an american longrifle into a slab.

And I have some slab bodock (aged 25 years), love how it polishes out.

This will be interesting going from big to small. Mostly hand tools. anything powered scorches the bodock. Just ordered pins/washers so i can give it a go.