Thread: Maher & Grosh in horn from start to finish (Pic heavy!)

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, but knowing it would take a ot of time I've been postponing it over and over again, but this weekend I finally decided to go for it, so here is a "How do I do it, step by step" taking a Maher & Grosh from start to finish.

1. Here's the raozor as it came to me, pretty good shape, except for someone trying to sand it or something making some light scratches along the blade and the scales had started to shrink, which is not a very good sign being celluloid....



2. Unpining. Cutting the pins of with a flush cutter, then using a mandrel to carefully drive them out.




3. Blade out of the scales, ready for buffing.



4. My buffer. I use these tapered spindles, making wheel change fast and easy.





5.Buffing. Since this blade was in pretty good shape I only ran it very lightly on 400 grit greaseless before moving on trough four different steps of polishing.

6. Blade finished.



7. Then to making sales. This is the horn I had picked out for this one, it's not very good pieces, quite curved, uneven and flaking, so I had to sand it flat and could only get on scale out of each piece, making a bit more work than with a good piece.




8. Safety - wear gloves!!



9. The horn is ready, lying on the bench waiting for a design. When making custom scales I outline the blade on a piece of paper and sketch the scales around it to make sure the size is correct. The shape I draw is not necessary the final shape, for this one I just drew the basic "square" shape and rounded it a bit when sanding them as you will see later.




10. Transfering the design to the back scale with carbon paper.

11. Attaching the desing to the horn with double sided tape.



12. Rough cutting the scales on a Scroll saw.





13. Attaching the two pieces together with double sided tape.



14. Drilling holes for the pins.



15. Shaping the sales on the belt sander.

16. Main shape is ready, here I change to a 180 grit belt for the final thinning and shaping.



17. Finished with the belt sander, now to hand sanding up to 2000 grit.




18. Hand sanded to 2000, ready for polishing. I use Autosol (Equal to Maas etc. for polishing most materials)





19. Splitting the scales. For this I use a cracked blade, the concave shape of the hollow grinde makes it easy without putting too much pressure on the materials.

20. Making the wedge. I'm using bone for this one, here I make the "V" shape using the belt sander.



21. Drawing the outline of the scale onto the wedge and marking the pin hole. Then rough cutting on the scroll saw before shaping it on the disc sander.





22. Mocking the mount of wedge and blade to make sure I got the flex I want in the scales and that everything fits as it should.




23. Pining the wedge.

24. Sanding the wedge flush to the scales...carefully....then hand sanding and polishing.




25. All pinned up, almost done...



26. One little trick for the final finish: I sand the pins with 2000 paper and polish them, the tape is t protect the scales from scratches.




27. Balance is everything...




28. DONE!




Hope you enjoy this, thanks for looking.

Thanks for posting this useful how to series. She turned out very nice.

Bob

Beautiful work! Thanks for taking the time to document the process with photos and for sharing it with the community.

I am about to make some scales for myself. I've been a little hesitant, but now I think it'll be fun. Thanks for posting!

Very nicely done and an excellent presentation