Thread: What are you working on?

Well Aaron again you have inspired me. I hope you inspire your students this much. Anyway, I decided to burnish one of my dad's Arks.

I smoothed it down to 3k. I hope it's not too smooth. You could chisel a name in it and use it as a headstone. I've never used an Arkie for finishing before but I suppose I have to learn now.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

I thought sure I had posted about this one and there was discussion about whether the scales were bone or ivory and there was a consensus that they were bone. If I remember correctly I was pretty convinced they were ivory but was then persuaded that they were not. I searched like crazy but could not find that discussion. Maybe I'm confusing them for another one.....

ANYWAY...after the W&B medium sized hollow ground discussion and the scales that appear to be ivory on one side and bone on the other I started thinking about this one again and pulled it out of the box.
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After cleaning them up with some Simple Green there is definitely grain in them and they are definitely not man-made. After thinking that scales were perhaps ivory before and being wrong I don't trust my own judgement now. Also I read somewhere earlier that a hot needle will not leave a dark spot on ivory but will on bone (a test I did on these before) but just today read something to the contrary. Am I right that these are in fact ivory? And if so what is the best way to repair a break at the wedge pin?
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CA?
Thanks in advance for any input.

So back to this thing. So I took it to my friend the jeweler who has a lot of experience with ivory and he.said "definitely NOT bone. It could be a synthetic. Some are very hard to tell from ivory. You could do the hot pin test to find out. It's really easy to tell if it's synthetic that way." I told him I did that and it is definitely not synthetic to which he replied then for.sure ivory but not elephant. Could be hippo tooth, walrus, narwhal or even bore tusk but not likely boar. I told him what people said about ivory "always" pinned without collars. His response was, "Well, I'm no expert on that but obviously not because this is ivory." Time to rethink the criteria

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

So back to this thing. ...

A slight tangent, but going back to your earlier question, did you restore the break at the wedge pin? I'm sure glues or resins would do it, I think I might consider a repair in keeping with the age of the thing:



It seems these repairs are done with liners or reinforcement strips riveted to the scales, an elegant solution considering the materials and techniques available at the time:



This are not my razors, I saw them offered for sale a while ago. I think that using methods in keeping with the age of the item is a nice approach, which respects the aesthetic integrity of the object.

What say the board?

I like them like that I also appreciate the ones where the repairs are nearly invisible. But them Im pretty easy to please

I see the logic in your thinking and think that you make a valid point. This one is not even in the queue at the moment but I will probably try to make the repairs as invisible as possible. My main point in this is a PSA: you can't use collars on the pins as definitive evidence as or against identification. There were SO MANY things telling me these were ivory and yet I had people saying, "NOPE. They have collars."
I'm not saying this to shame anyone but to help us ALL have more information. I...one guy...have at least 2 now that are ivory with collared pins. I may have more and so might some of you. We need to know this not only for handing out valid IDs but more importantly, as Richard points out one of us might unknowingly get them confiscated. I don't think any of us wants that.

I got one too. That collar and pin thing is not 100% a high probability yes but not for sure. Schreger lines and a hot pin test help me the most.

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Well Aaron again you have inspired me. I hope you inspire your students this much. Anyway, I decided to burnish one of my dad's Arks.

I smoothed it down to 3k. I hope it's not too smooth. You could chisel a name in it and use it as a headstone. I've never used an Arkie for finishing before but I suppose I have to learn now.

Thanks, Paul-I'm glad to inspire anybody in this anxious era we live in. As for my students, I met my AP senior grads in a local park this morning to give each of them a thought-provoking book of their choice to ruminate on over their summer before college (whereas in the past I have done that in a post-exam barbecue and ice cream party). You would have to ask them how inspired they are.

As for the Ark, I love it. One caveat on the highly-burnished Arks that some serious Arkie aficionados don't like: it slows down an already slow stone considerably. The usual solution? Keep the other side "rough" at no more than 1k to get things started before flipping over to the slick side. Once on that highly-burnished side, you will find that, given a solid honing stroke, you can use considerably more blade torque and faster techniques (at least on beefier grinds) starting out before gradually lightening up to finish. Large circles, back and forth strokes, and "windshield wiper" strokes can speed things up a good bit at the outset, and you can still even it all out with careful x-strokes. I like a generous puddle of WD-40 for lube so that I can still watch the wave, but everybody has their favorite.

I'd like to further inspire you to search out all the Arkansas honing threads on this and other forums. If you're anything like me, you don't go down a rabbit hole unless you go all the way down it lol! "Never get out of the boat...unless you were going all the way." (gratuitous movie quote analogy there).

The good news with a burnished ark is if you don't like it, you can always scuff it back up with a diamond plate or other methods. Have fun!

Okay, so after a couple of rough weeks trying to finish up this crazy distance learning semester, it's all over but the paperwork (and calling names of graduates at next Friday's social-distancing graduation, which promises to be interesting), I've started on some new projects. It's been too long since I did one in horn, so I took a perfect black set I had to use on a beefy, pitted WH Oates quarter-hollow. I didn't want to sand away that beautiful etch or lose the lines on this old Manchester beauty, so after some light buffing with an emery wheel, I put some elbow grease on it in the knife vise using 1st 3M Marine Polish and 0000 steel wool, and then the finer Wenol Blue with a clean rag.

Scales are finished and the brass-lined horn wedge is clamped in epoxy to the rear scale. (And don't laugh-those plastic sandwich meat containers make great stackable project bins-just keep all the parts for that razor in it). I think the blade looks pretty good considering (as usual, I forgot to take before pics!):

Here she is in mock-up/test fit. I went for a little more traditional look with the scales this time to complement the round toe and traditional look of the blade. All centered perfectly and tight in the bolts:

I'll probably pin her up tomorrow. I'm waiting for my to-be-honed cup to start giving me the serious stink-eye before dragging out all my hones. I get enough nagging without teeing it up for her.
And yeah, I know my shop is a mess-don't judge. It's on my to-do list.
More later-SHD/A-Aron

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

My eye went directly to the first picture without reading and I thought of SOTD....

What type of soap and cream is he using? LOL

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

...And yeah, I know my shop is a mess-don't judge. It's on my to-do list.
More later-SHD/A-Aron

Never trust a service man whose van is too clean. I think the same can be said for workshops.