Attachment 299684
The only variance to the directions on the box, is soak time. I like four hours minimum, for black horn. Six or more, for blonde/honey horn.
It needs to penetrate well, cause you'll still need to do a high grit sanding, or a good rubbing with steel wool before polishing them. I know from experience... Going thru the dye, sucks. :banghead:
As for a backer......yours broke.!? There ya go, strong enough for normal use. They'll take almost as much to break them, as you would to break new ones. But why would you want to use that much force, in the first place. :shrug:
They survived honing, repeated ironing before, during repairs. And again, after coming out of dye and oil.
BTW. neatsfoot oil on a hot iron, smells like fries cookin.
The cool part is, it doesn't smoke, and it cleans out all the green stuff in behind these metal inserts. Literally, it boils it to the surface where it can be wiped off with a rag. Let's them settle back into the scales after put in oil.