Thread: one to work on...

One of my latest ebay purchases. It's quite rough, I think its been stored in some sort of grease, whatever it's covered in I'm not convinced its nice! I think done brake disc cleaner might be needed to clean this gunk off it.

I'm really interested in the scale on this. I'll assume its faux tortoise shell. I'm guessing at some point something has been stuck to the scale and then someone has removed it, badly. There's clearly a rectangular mark and marks all round it where it has been gouged off. The rectangle is badly positioned whatever it was. Any suggestions as to what the scale material is and what the rectangle might have been that meant someone would risk destroying the scale to remove it?

Also any suggestions on saving the scale? One half is badly warped, although that is cosmetic and not causing any issues. Could the chip marks be removed by sanding?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcomed