Thread: Tomorrow I peen!!!

After much work on my stubby scales I'm finally ready to peen. What should have been a simple rescale was a real pain in the butt. While sanding down the thickness my tape came off and one scale got thrown under the belt guard... ruined. I was pretty peeved so I dropped the project for another. I went back and remade the ruined scale, made my wedge and glued it on. The wedge was too thin for my taste. (Stupid me for using too thin of a mock up tang. Lesson learned.) Dropped it for another few projects. Came back glued an additional piece to the original wedge and sanded it all flush. Things fit well so I resanded everything back up to 2k. The wood is zebra wood with three coats of Tung oil. The blade is an I. Barber Spanish point. I may go back and do a CA finish over the Tung. Tomorrow I put her together and hit the hones. Hopefully by tomorrow night I'm shaving with it.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Maybe it is just lighting/angle of the pics, but something just looks "Off" about that razor

How thick is the Spine in relation to the Tang????

Well it certainly had some battle scars I wasn't willing to buff away due to major metal loss. The spine is equal thickness to the tang if I remember correctly but it's not in front of me. It tapers down to the monkey tail. I will take some better pics after work.

The width is the same looking at it. Here are some pics.

And the finished product.

Nice job!

Its not a difficult process unless you have super fragile or valuable scales. For newbies, if your peening looks rough, sanding the peened area with progressively fine sandpaper (1k onwards) will make it look so much better. Gently buffing it on a crox coated linen strop really brings out the shine of the brass - although only do this when you've got the area already smooth (Unless you want green gunk to find its way into the parts that aren't smooth). incidentally this also works well for horn scales and brings out a gloss shine to them - you reeeeeeally want to make sure the surface is smooth as can be first though, for the same reason as applies to polishing peened pins. A hanging denim strop works very well for this - gently rubbing over it will bring a great polish but may take an hour or so.

Originally Posted by Christel

Nice job!
Its not a difficult process unless you have super fragile or valuable scales. For newbies, if your peening looks rough, sanding the peened area with progressively fine sandpaper (1k onwards) will make it look so much better. Gently buffing it on a crox coated linen strop really brings out the shine of the brass - although only do this when you've got the area already smooth (Unless you want green gunk to find its way into the parts that aren't smooth). incidentally this also works well for horn scales and brings out a gloss shine to them - you reeeeeeally want to make sure the surface is smooth as can be first though, for the same reason as applies to polishing peened pins. A hanging denim strop works very well for this - gently rubbing over it will bring a great polish but may take an hour or so.

It helps to make a mask with a hole punched the size of the washer out of pop can material and large enough to shield the scales from the buff. and you can do a better job that way. Assure the mask is held in place by your hand or a bit of double back tape.
~Richard

Couple layers of masking tape works,I do this on Ivory scales as it creates a cushion effect.

Yeah I used from electrical tape this go through but next time I think I've got an easier process. I need to order some horn for the next razor since I've never worked with if before.

I hit the hones and the spine seems alright to my untrained eye, but there was a small frown near the heel. We talked about this in another thread; I wonder if whoever honed this back in the day was hanging the heel off the hone and caused the frown. I was able to remove the frown with my DMT by pulling the heel area back slightly. I'm gonna put in a little more work tonight and then try to finish tomorrow. It's so exciting to think about using a razor that may have shaved a Civil War soldier.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Maybe it is just lighting/angle of the pics, but something just looks "Off" about that razor

How thick is the Spine in relation to the Tang????