Leather scales what would it take?

My question is a very easy one: can leather scales be a reasonable option today? I know that back in the day some scales were made out of leather, and in the back of my mind leather could represent a nice media to work on. I was watching one of Magnus videos and saw where he kept his blades and I was thinking some engraved or tooled leather scales would look the part. Now my question would be what type of leather? Should I buy pre treated leather? How can I make it waterproof? Has anybody tried making scales with the stuff?

I have been in one of these discussions before. At first I was all " NO" . Leather and hard, or leather and water, are not the first combinations that come to my mind. Rawhide is naturally hard but it softens nice with water. Heat and drying will harden leather but like I said this has always been a bad thing in my mind because of what I use leather for. You might try a search and see if that thread comes up. I don't know if the OP ever pulled it off or not. If you could shape and make your design and then stabilize the leather like they do wood for turning, maybe?
Realize I am thinking and typing and have never tried any of this :<0)

Back in the long ago there was a short era of boiled and pressed leather scales. Either they were not popular or not durable enough to stand the test of time as not many of them have survived. Most of the ones I have seen advertised as paper scales I suspect are mislabeled leather. I have one set in fair condition but it is my understanding they have to be oiled regularly.

I am thinking a three pin could work if let's say it was boiled in carnauba wax. I have a set of wooden scales that were boiled in wax and nothing else and they've survived for 2 years. The leather would've need to be like the type used for shoe soles and maybe with a thin stainless liner.
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YEP just got back from search box. ( leather scales) Looks like something I don't want to try let alone restore.

I think you should try some. I'd like to see the process and hear about the experiments. They do after all work well for shoes so it stands to reason. I'm sure that Geezer (Richard) knows a little about it. Seems to me he was the one that tipped me off to the fact that my scales are boiled leather.

Oh yeah, just because I wouldn't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a go. I just got enough experiments to try already :<0)

you could always try something like stabilising them like people do with softer wood to make scales.

Could you not wrap the leather around an acrylic centre? Never even made scales, but surely there has to be an adhesive that would do the trick these days, right?

I do not know if anyone has successfully stabilized leather with modern methods. I asked a stabilizing company and they gave no assurance. One friend did try but had bad luck or inadequate equipment. I would like to know how also.
~Richard

The type of leather used for those old (and not so old) razor scales was termed 'cuir bouilli' - literally boiled leather. It was used for copious numbers of razors - I guess I have 20 or more sets that I have removed and replaced with new scales. Of those 20+ sets of scales i would say that most are in very good condition indeed, some are in excellent condition, and some are really soft, bendy and quite useless.

In the middle ages a lot of armour was made using hard leather produced by this process.

It was boiled in order to reach certain temperatures. At one stage the physical structure of the leather would remain virtually the same, at which point it was removed with tongs and either pressed or hammered flat, and used to sole boots.

Letting the temperature get a little higher and the matrix of the leather began to flow, at which stage it was removed and pressed in cast iron preheated presses, with any number of plates that cut it to shape and/or decorated the surface. Normally there was just a slight rebate (lower) area around the edges. The heated cast iron presses and plates were liberally daubed with tallow grease, which mixed with the surface of the leather, providing a deep penetrating protective layer.

With the higher heats the scales, if well preserved, tend to look a bit like hard rubber, and the texture of the product is very evenly grained throughout, except at the surface, which was very smooth.

Other unlikely materials were used too, such as horn, which was heated, set in the press and screwed tight, then reheated till it dribbled and was screwed tight once more. These gave very detailed representations of any engraving done on the steel 'shaper' plates, you often see such scales on very early razors, with straight(ish - they tapered a bit) scales rather than curved ones.

Even more unlikely is the use at around the same period of plain wood, thouroghly soaked through, heated and subjected to the press to recieve all sorts of patterns, but simpler patterns than on horn scales - wood tends to craze and raise its grain ends a bit to take very intricate details.

Regards,
Neil

Does the use of pressed leather go back to Roman times - or is that just Cecil B deMills imagination?

I messed around with this a few years ago. I tried to stabilize the leather in a pressure pot. That did not work because the pressure closed up the cells. I think it is time for me to contact Skipnord and ask him to try stabilizing some leather in his vacuum pot with his gorilla juice then putting them in a press after that to harden.
It would be cool to have someone like hidestoart do some stamping/engraving then have them stabilized.

I know this is leather specific but im wondering if a synthetic leather layered would be a better solution .. I would think having it sewn on the edges and being synthetic would make it sturdy enough as well as being stable for the long run ..