Thread: What are you working on?

I have a Joseph Allen & Sons that I need to make new scales for. Trying to decide between nice wood or a micarta or even a good horn if I can find somr nice maerial.
Slawman

I have a "Diamond" 9/16ths which for 6 months has been eating my lunch. Finally I got a hone combination to work with it. It now Shaves!!
Today a requested rescale in late nice "rope edge" faux Ivory scales. And...out the door!
May your day be so happy!
~Richard

Originally Posted by Slawman

I have a Joseph Allen & Sons that I need to make new scales for. Trying to decide between nice wood or a micarta or even a good horn if I can find somr nice maerial.
Slawman

It kind of depends on the style of blade but most times given a choice I will pick the horn scales, they just seem to have more character and charm.

Not much,just sort of cobbeling some stuff together,Some Thuya,Some musk ox, some Ivory, some buff horn.

I will be working on my first attempt at making new scales. Despite what my good friend cuda has emphasised to (at) me, I am going ahead with jumping right in to the mix. Maybe I differ from a lot of people but for me, failure is a valid option. Why? Because no amount of practice on similar, but not the same materials, will assure you of a positive and perfect result when you get to the project. I will be making a set of scales out of slightly warped Camel bone, adding high tech plastic liner and as yet undecided wedge. Enough recognisable problems right off the bat. Major lesson learned will be if successful, no problems in the future if used again. Failure, either correct errors next time used, or not use again. Either way, failure, in this case is a valid learning process. But maybe that's because my mind works that way. I started as an oil painter, many mistakes as you paint and you just scrape off or paint over. Also, cud has told me I'm a teenager in an old body and am much too impatient to do things in an orderly fashion. Hey! I tried that approach and my marriage lasted 15 years. I learned from that failure. As a born-again-bachelor I'm staying that way.

Finally found a use for those cheap Gold Dollar scales. Quite by accident actually.

I was selling a razor and whilst test shaving, the tip of the original scales broke off.

I was out of replacements so I grabbed the GD scales and started to try to remove the cheesy gold etching on the side with a steel brush wheel in my dremel.
It went deep and created a faux wood grain look after some sanding with 1k grit paper. So I decided to do it to the whole scale. Here's how it turned out.

And the aforementioned Gold Dollar...



Did some dremel jimps on top to help with grip and a little notch for show underneath...

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

I will be working on my first attempt at making new scales. Despite what my good friend cuda has emphasised to (at) me, I am going ahead with jumping right in to the mix.

I like your view mine is similar jump in both feet first and see if you drown if not all good the rest is life experience
But I have also always lived by this quote as much as possible
"Learn from others mistakes, as life's to short to make them all yourself"

Look forward to seeing the finished product either way

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

I will be working on my first attempt at making new scales. Despite what my good friend cuda has emphasised to (at) me, I am going ahead with jumping right in to the mix. Maybe I differ from a lot of people but for me, failure is a valid option. Why? Because no amount of practice on similar, but not the same materials, will assure you of a positive and perfect result when you get to the project. I will be making a set of scales out of slightly warped Camel bone, adding high tech plastic liner and as yet undecided wedge. Enough recognisable problems right off the bat. Major lesson learned will be if successful, no problems in the future if used again. Failure, either correct errors next time used, or not use again. Either way, failure, in this case is a valid learning process. But maybe that's because my mind works that way. I started as an oil painter, many mistakes as you paint and you just scrape off or paint over. Also, cud has told me I'm a teenager in an old body and am much too impatient to do things in an orderly fashion. Hey! I tried that approach and my marriage lasted 15 years. I learned from that failure. As a born-again-bachelor I'm staying that way.

Now, now, if you remember I sent you the links to the washers you would need and I advised to practice on some Popsicle sticks before you launched in full bore. I also sent you some wooden scale material to try and sent you some links to see how others did it with hand tools. I don't recall ever saying not to make scales, just to go slow as I hate to see materials wasted.

But then again I smoked dope back in the day so maybe my memory is off

Please keep up posted with your progress

Originally Posted by DickWhitman

Finally found a use for those cheap Gold Dollar scales. Quite by accident actually.

I was selling a razor and whilst test shaving, the tip of the original scales broke off.

I was out of replacements so I grabbed the GD scales and started to try to remove the cheesy gold etching on the side with a steel brush wheel in my dremel.
It went deep and created a faux wood grain look after some sanding with 1k grit paper. So I decided to do it to the whole scale. Here's how it turned out.

That is kind of a cool effect. I can see that it might be fun to play with that.