Thread: Carving Ivory Scales

Once the carving is done , polish it up. Use pretty much whatever polishes you like for doing any plastic, horn, bone scale and make it shine. It has to be essentially finished before you start the Scrimshaw. You can't sand and polish after the Scrimshaw so you have to do it now.
Once the polishing is done it's time to get your pin in a dowel, or like I did, a sharpened drill bit in a mechanical pencil to use as your scribe to scratch , or press dots into the surface.
As I said, any number of sharp pointed tools have been used to do this. But just remember. Anywhere you touch that tool to the surface will leave enough of an impression , or mark, that will show up on the final design.
It doesn't take much. And varying the amount of pressure to either a series of dots for shading, or scratches for your outline will change the look of the design. Naturally a very light scratch on the surface will appear light. Press hard and make a deeper scratch and it'll appear very dark. A bit of practice will show you just how much pressure to use for a design.
Now once you scratch in your design simply use a Sharpie, Ink ( what has been used for centuries) paint, dyes etc. and allow it to flow into the scratches, dots, you just made for your design. Let it set a moment and wipe it away.
I happen to use the Sharpie Paint. Not a regular sharpie. Using Renwax ( as it has some thinner in it) allowed me to wipe away the excess paint. If you use acrylics,, use a dampened cloth. Depending on the ink, alcohol or whatever will thin the ink you're using to wipe away the excess.

Now this scratching in a design isn't done all in one step. First you scratch the outlines. Add the ink/paint, wipe it away and rub some wax on the surface.
For a single color this isn't as important as if you're using several colors that you want to keep separate. For example. You may scratch in an outline and color it with black. You wipe the completed design with wax. Then you go back and scratch , dot in some more of the design and you color it with say, red.
Wipe away the red and apply another coat of wax. Doing this will now block out both the black and the red in your design so you can add more scratches, dots and add another color for example , blue. Wipe off the blue and you'll now see black, red, and blue without the blue filling in all the dots and scratches left when you did the black and the red.
Cool huh?
So you just keep doing this over and over adding more detail until the design is completed.
In this case the fine pinstripe and Fleur de Lis type detail had to be done in one smooth line. You only have one chance to get it right as you can't simple erase a stray line. You have to sand the entire area if you do an 'OOPS' . So hold your breath and give it a go.