Thread: Hand Sanding Horn... Ugh

What do you guys use to sand and shape horn scales with? I'm working on a honey horn pair and man is it slow going.

Consider these options from Sally's Beauty supply, they have been shaping & polishing nails for generations. I have used them to restore wood & horn,,,even brass & silver nickel rods and leather.

That second photo is an internet photo, BTW,,,, I don't have that stuff in my bathroom.

Wet dry. I start using it with water at 600. It makes the scratches harder to see and I need to rinse and dry it often to see that the previous grit scratches have gotten removed. It is soft and usually goes pretty quick.

Sally's boards work great. They have the approximate grit range, are flat and clean up easily.
Spazola turned me on to them.

They work great on tangs.

A scraper is the fastest way to finish shaping a set of scales once they come off the belt sander IMHO. The finish is so smooth you can start sanding at 320 grit. Here's a link that is buried in the workshop forums. http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-way-i-do.html

I use sand paper up to 2k grit then 3M wood sanding cloths. After all the hand sanding, I use a buffer for final polish. Horn is very easy to shape and polish IME.

Originally Posted by karlej

A scraper is the fastest way to finish shaping a set of scales once they come off the belt sander IMHO. The finish is so smooth you can start sanding at 320 grit. Here's a link that is buried in the workshop forums. http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-way-i-do.html

A good point! I use the single blade of a scissors with the handle wrapped in tape. Blade is held with the flat side perpendicular to the work. Also, a ¼" square hardened and ground machine lathe tool about 8 inches long and handled makes a great scraper. 1/4 Inch Wide x 1/4 Inch High x 8 Inch Long, 02610160 - MSC
~Richard
PS. I use the scrapers of this type like a pocket knife in similar fashion to whittling.

For rough shaping I used to just put the scales in a vise and then use half round file , worked very well and pretty fast for me.

Yes, Karlej’s tutorial is very good.

Files and floats for shaping, a sharp handplane for thinning and scrapers and belt sander or sandpaper glued to sticks (Paint Stir sticks, tongue depressors or popsicle sticks) for final shaping and smoothing, followed by hand sanding.

Do fashion dust collection for belt sanding.

You can make a decent scraper from a good quality putty knife and filing or belt sanding a burr on one edge, you can burnish a burr but filing or Karlej’s belt sanding method works well and quickly. Cabinet card scrapers are not expensive and can be scored and snapped into smaller pieces for detail work.

Putty knives and scrapers can be ground to shape, but I just use them as them come, card scrapers do come with curves. A garage sale chisel also works with a burr ground or filed on the edge.

Scraping is much quicker than sanding and without the dust. Then just finish with wet sanding.