Thread: The Butchered Blade

Originally Posted by MikeT

Hey I've got some aquatic keratin that needs straightening. Guess it would be same process as bovine...?
My question... what temperature? And would you go with dry or wet heat?
B52 talked about hot oil bath... you get a temp on that Mike?
Thanks guys!

You can always try my heat lamp trick

Originally Posted by outback

You can always try my heat lamp trick

Yeah I keep turning that around in my head. But I don't have a heat lamp. And I have a VERY limited supply. This stuff cost me about 50 bucks per set. Thought I'd get more out of it but it's looking like 3 sets of scales and a shorty set.
I'm looking for an 8/8 Fili with broken toe on the cheap for a shorty... or something along those lines.

Just water, outback. Boiling water. No oil on this, until it's cooled down. Oil can penetrate and weaken the inter-sheets bonding. Turtle shell keratin plates are far <1mm thick, and lots of it must be collected and pressed together under boiling water to fuse in a piece thick enough to be carved and shaped. It can be bent when moist and hot, but keep pressure until it's dry and cold. You can see the fusion lines between sheets on a high polished object, when it's old, by reflecting light on it's surface.
The fusion of a number of different tinted sheets gives the 3D effect on the object made. Clearer sheets gave better results (translucent amber background with reddish-brown blotches). Darker ones gives dark-brown/almost black less valuable objects.
If well cared, turtle will be less prone to chip or crack than ivory or bone. Treat yours with Renwax and be happy.
Not only the smell is a clue on tortoiseshell.

Pretty much the same than any keratin-made material. You can even spare toenails to build something similar.

Originally Posted by Matheus

Just water, outback. Boiling water. No oil on this, until it's cooled down. Oil can penetrate and weaken the inter-sheets bonding. Turtle shell keratin plates are far <1mm thick, and lots of it must be collected and pressed together under boiling water to fuse in a piece thick enough to be carved and shaped. It can be bent when moist and hot, but keep pressure until it's dry and cold. You can see the fusion lines between sheets on a high polished object, when it's old, by reflecting light on it's surface.
The fusion of a number of different tinted sheets gives the 3D effect on the object made. Clearer sheets gave better results (translucent amber background with reddish-brown blotches). Darker ones gives dark-brown/almost black less valuable objects.
If well cared, turtle will be less prone to chip or crack than ivory or bone. Treat yours with Renwax and be happy.
Not only the smell is a clue on tortoiseshell.

Pretty much the same than any keratin-made material. You can even spare toenails to build something similar.

Dang that's some info I've never had before!
Good to know about the toe nails.. lol
This is baleen. Same idea with the de-laminating?
If I read that right it could break it up... ?
Do you know the right temperature and time depending on thickness?

Great info on keratin Matheus, thanks very much for that.
The hot oil straightening of horn I read about on a middle eastern site that does that work in volume. I'm sure they use presses in conjunction with the oil but have never tried it personally.
Never had the pleasure of holding a tortoise scaled razor, but my mom has a few old brushes I would love to repurpose one day..

Originally Posted by MikeT

...This is baleen. Same idea with the de-laminating?
If I read that right it could break it up... ?
Do you know the right temperature and time depending on thickness?

I never worked baleen, so I can't guess how can it be done for sure. Density and micro structure can be distinct from turtle sheets.
With turtle sheets the temperature is of the boiling water (100oC), just about a minute to heat and moist the things up to allow pressing further. Oh, the press, or clamp, or something you use to apply pressure must be heated too. Not so hot as the water, just to avoid cooling down the pressed parts too fast. Turtle sheets also were sanded with steel whool prior to clamping.

Oh, just to clarify the things: I never hurt a turtle... I used to live at the beach (and I was at college - biology), and very often dead turtles and all sort of creatures were washed at storm season. I scavenge on that, and collected multiple good biological pieces as albatrosses, petrels, eventually whales, dolphins, sea lions. Assembled lots of good skeletons for the college. My car had a distinct stench by the time, booze and chum.
Boiling dead turtles to remove the shell scales was part of the processing procedure to get the skeleton, and the granddad of a fishing pal (japanese) told me to spare the scales and showed me how to weld together the leftover sheets using an eletric pan . He (the old guy) worked making frames for eyeglasses when young at Japan.

Thank you Matheus! This is very good input. I think I have the basic idea a bit more refined!
Welding turtle scales together! That's amazing. I never knew... I had figured that they were cut from solid shell..
To think that the pieces "fuse" together... that is astonishing to me. Gives me more of an idea of the material properties.
I'll need to start experimenting on broken scales.
Perhaps it is conceivable that they too could be "fused" together? Maybe a silly idea.

EDIT: when I boil this... is the house going to smell terrible??? My wife may freak out! Lol

Maybe yes, but cracked scales offers a very small area of contact between the pieces. A lot of turtle scales are needed to built an object, because they need to be stacked as "//////////////".

Originally Posted by Matheus

Just water, outback. Boiling water. No oil on this, until it's cooled down. Oil can penetrate and weaken the inter-sheets bonding. Turtle shell keratin plates are far <1mm thick, and lots of it must be collected and pressed together under boiling water to fuse in a piece thick enough to be carved and shaped. It can be bent when moist and hot, but keep pressure until it's dry and cold. You can see the fusion lines between sheets on a high polished object, when it's old, by reflecting light on it's surface.
The fusion of a number of different tinted sheets gives the 3D effect on the object made. Clearer sheets gave better results (translucent amber background with reddish-brown blotches). Darker ones gives dark-brown/almost black less valuable objects.
If well cared, turtle will be less prone to chip or crack than ivory or bone. Treat yours with Renwax and be happy.
Not only the smell is a clue on tortoiseshell.

Pretty much the same than any keratin-made material. You can even spare toenails to build something similar.

Thanks for the info, very helpful to all that may come in contact with it.

The heat lamp I've used on horn and plastic scales.
The horn i sprayed with water , then heated with the lamp, spraying once while heating up.
When they started to curl i applied another surface on top of them, and put weight on top of that.
Then let cool , naturally
All n all, about an hour.

Plastics are even faster, and no water needed

Originally Posted by sharptonn

After 2 beers, I leave them alone.

I do suspect the top will be all that is used. I have an old Sioux jitterbug air-sander with worn, heavy stuff on it. Puts a smooth surface on my hammer head and anvil. Then, I trundle them off to the buffer. Slick as can-be. Maintaining this anvil should go the same, I think.

You'll be maintaining your hammer if ya wack that rail with it.
Thats harder than a man on his weddin nite. [emoji106]
Juuust aaa liiittle polish please.[emoji41]