Thread: New horn scales.... the process.

Originally Posted by gratewhitehuntr

The "you told me so" was my little commentary on people wanting to disregard the methods I was recommending to them based on my experiences

I'm trying to save people the trouble and the wasted material/time/energy.

If someone wants to waste time and energy that is their prerogative.
It's mine to poke fun at them.

Disregarding? Wasting time and energy? Did I said something to hurt your feelings???

What, you think you have discovered a way to put carbon in the steel without heating it? This "super duper secret horn flattening method" is as old as the human desire to flatten horn, and it's widely known around the world...

btw, as a data point for your experiments, horn's melting point is at 350F, and nowadays, horn is heated in oil bath and flattened in a press.

Nenad

Blah, blah, blah, enough bickering.

What I want to see is the 'pressed horn' with sayings or images pressed into the side....

THEN we can replace or make some nice classic looking horn scales!

Come on guys, hop to it!



C utz

Thanks for the information GW! there are a few of us around here who don't know this information and appreciate the chance to learn something new!!

Mark Avery

just for the record, GW has NEVER claimed this as his 'secret' method - that was just something that KD5 threw in there to add a little humor because GW was explaining the method in the chatroom, and not a whole lot of people were there to hear it - we were all fascinated to hear GW explain his method (and, just for the record, I doubt they've been using the front wheel of their car for the last hundred years or so! - good one, Shaun! )

-whatever

-Lou

Originally Posted by C utz

Blah, blah, blah, enough bickering.

What I want to see is the 'pressed horn' with sayings or images pressed into the side....

THEN we can replace or make some nice classic looking horn scales!

Come on guys, hop to it!



C utz

In the chatroom chat, I asked Shaun specifically about that (IIRC, I asked about putting a vintage dime on the horn prior to pressing) He seemed a little skeptical - thought the design on the dime was too subtle -but, maybe if you had a big, bold, high-relief name/design/whatever, something like that might work.

G-dub? ....any thoughts?

-whatever

-Lou

There's a train that goes by my work a couple times per day and is great at crushing pennies. You think it could flatten a horn?

Originally Posted by scarface

In the chatroom chat, I asked Shaun specifically about that (IIRC, I asked about putting a vintage dime on the horn prior to pressing) He seemed a little skeptical - thought the design on the dime was too subtle -but, maybe if you had a big, bold, high-relief name/design/whatever, something like that might work.

G-dub? ....any thoughts?

-whatever

-Lou

Anyone know how to make a dye-stamp??
The dime idea is a good one, but I can see how it might be too shallow. There has to be something...I think I saw some metal letter stamps at the craftshop. I'm not sure if that would bear the weight of a car though....who knows

Sometimes there are old razor 'printing blocks' on eBay....I wonder if one of those, or something similar could be used as a stamp. It just needs to be strong enough to press into the horn (and then there is that confounded 'car weight' issue I'm going to ignore).

Perhaps a 'reverse-etched' piece of metal?

It'd be nice to see 'pressed horn scales' make a showing again.....

C utz

...............

Originally Posted by scarface

just for the record, GW has NEVER claimed this as his 'secret' method - that was just something that KD5 threw in there to add a little humor because GW was explaining the method in the chatroom, and not a whole lot of people were there to hear it - we were all fascinated to hear GW explain his method (and, just for the record, I doubt they've been using the front wheel of their car for the last hundred years or so! - good one, Shaun! )

-whatever

-Lou

Yeah man, take a chill pill. Harry was just goofing around about the "secret" thing.

I just suggested the car because it's the heaviest thing that nearly everyone has. Not everyone had TAD you know. (tool acquisition disorder)

Originally Posted by superfly

Disregarding? Wasting time and energy? Did I said something to hurt your feelings???

What, you think you have discovered a way to put carbon in the steel without heating it? This "super duper secret horn flattening method" is as old as the human desire to flatten horn, and it's widely known around the world...

btw, as a data point for your experiments, horn's melting point is at 350F, and nowadays, horn is heated in oil bath and flattened in a press.

Nenad

Nope, not at all. That was directed at the Aussie. Like I said, if someone wants to waste time then be my guest.

Maybe you think it isn't wasting time? I talked to Joe C about this topic and he said he would try working with some. He said he had been boiling to flatten and didn't see a need for baking. I boiled some and pressed it flat and sent it off.
Next day I came home and the piece I had kept was nice and round and clean(from boiling).
I came to find out that he was working with commercially produced, very nearly flat horn from http://www.masecraftsupply.com/
Big difference between taking a 1/8 curve and a 3 inch curve out!!
I had to flatten more, thru baking, and send it to him. That's what I call a waste of time.

Thanks for the info on melting point and about the oil, like I said, I have been wondering for a while about that.

One major issue with pressing a dime or any other coin into a bit of horn is the reversal of the image/text.
Unless you have a dime with a reversed image, and I doubt you want to use that for horn, it's no good.

I have individual letter/number stamps but I'm not sure how pretty it would turn out and would be limited on size selections.
Perhaps heating the stamps and using a stencil would work out well.



I have used a bench vise and a c-clamp with varied results. the biggest problems are 1) getting and even distribution of force 2) being able to bring the clamping force to bear before the horn cools too much.

More to come !


(like anyone cares)


if I didn't have bad luck....

G.W.

I tried hot oil to heat horn this week and it seems to be a drastic improvement over the oven.

I used corn oil heated to between 310 and 325 F.

I was using cow horn that was white and tan.

Temps over 315 seemed to cause fairly rapid browning of the white sections but the darker color didn't seem to change at all.

The particular horn I was using already had the bark removed and was quite thin. It is very possible that 315-320 would be an ideal range for thicker horn such as the bison I had been working with.

Imperfections like blood spots seemed unaffected by the heat.

I attempted to bleach the horn with 20% Hydrogen Peroxide to no avail.
I also used a mix of 20% H2O2 and Sodium Hydroxide but like the first attempt all I got was a blistered piece of horn.

I will continue to seek a way to make blonde horn. Suggestions welcome.

Since the only solid color I can get so far is black I will be trying to dye a few pieces with hair color like can be purchased in the drug store.

My first colors will be grey and sort of strawberry blonde.

If this works well i may add others.

I will also be experimenting with aniline dyes or something else bright that should allow the horn to remain translucent.
If there is another sort of dye that would be better suited and is available in bright colors like red and yellow please let me know.

These are a couple of pics of what I did the other day. None of the semi finished scales yet.