My first re-scale

Well it happened about a year or so ago. The Dovo that my wife (then girlfriend) bought me had one of the scales crack at the pivot pin. I kept using it and eventually that end of the scale broke off. I was very stubborn and kept using it lol! I really like this razor and it's special to me because it was my first and my wife got it for me.

I have the stones and can do honing and decided that it was time to start learning how to do new scales. My grandfather is big into woodworking and gave me some walnut (his favorite to work with) to get started. Problem is it is about 1" thick. So using a hand held skill saw and a coping saw I got that cut down to about 1/2-1/4" thick pieces.

I soon decided that removing that much wood to get down to roughly 1/8" was more than I wanted to do by hand. Off to HF I went and got a belt/disk sander. Let me tell you that thing makes a HUGE difference!!!! I got the blanks shaved down to thickness and then back to hand sanding.

I used a 1/16" drill bit by hand to drill the pivot hole. I also decided that I liked the look of pure wood with no pin on the wedge end so it's just glued in.

I had a very difficult time deciding how to finish the scales. I couldn't decide if I wanted to do a pore filler then oil or maybe polycrylic. What I finally decided to do was use a danish oil finish. I finished the gluing today and also went ahead and did the oil this afternoon. I'm going to let it dry for about 24 hours before I try my hand at pinning the razor. I'm thinking I'll do a washer between the inside of the scales and the razor just to add an additional buffer between the wood and razor.

I'm open to any suggestions or thoughts. Huge thanks to Lewis Razors for his YouTube video showing him making scales with a minimum number of tools.

Thanks for reading and now for the good stuff pictures:

The cut and thinned blanks
Attachment 259785

The scales and wedge shaped and thinned
Attachment 259786

Oiled and drying
Attachment 259787

Showing the wedge
Attachment 259788

Very nice first set. They'll only get better the more you make.
Did you put the blade in them with micro screws before gluing them. If the pivot holes aren't lined up properly, the blade may hit the scales upon closing.

Those look great for a first attempt. Follow anything outback says his info will be solid. Keep it up :)

Nice first job. Keep at it!
Jer

Looks mighty fine from here

Very nice looking wood.
A great first set....something to be proud of.

Pete <:-}

Thanks everyone I'm very proud of them so far! They're far from perfect but that's ok for me.

Outback, I didn't use micro screws but did have the razor in with a piece of the nickel rod in going to use to pin them. Thank you for the advice! I'll put another picture up (hopefully tomorrow with the razor in and honed!

Hats off to you my friend, this is a great start. I would like to see the finished project and so would the rest of us. BTW what did you finally decide for and oil finish? Thanks for sharing.

Good looking scales there! Neat that your grandfather gave you the wood, that just adds to the meaning of these scales for you. Very cool.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JBPilot

Thanks everyone I'm very proud of them so far! They're far from perfect but that's ok for me.

Outback, I didn't use micro screws but did have the razor in with a piece of the nickel rod in going to use to pin them. Thank you for the advice! I'll put another picture up (hopefully tomorrow with the razor in and honed!

---

Good thinking sir.

Yes the wood coming from my grandfather definitely adds to the cool factor for me! As for the finish I put 3 or 4 coats of danish oil (wiped on with an old tee shirt) on it. That's all I'm planning to do for a finish.

This stuff:
Attachment 259825

Well all in all I am pleased. There are a few things I'll do differently next time but I'm happy with them! Now to get the razor back to shaving quality and I'm back in business!

Attachment 259850
Attachment 259851
Attachment 259852

And one that I'm thinking I'll do next and maybe flip...
Matching blade and box. The scales that came with it were held together with tape.
Attachment 259853

Looks great. Nice finish on the scales.:tu

If you use the thrust washers inside the scales they should sanded down to about .004 or .005 thickness. If you use the .015 washers as shipped from some one like Microfasteners, the razor pivot will look odd.

I always use thrust washers with wood scales as the inside washers give more stability to the pivot pin. I would also recommend using a thrust bearing for the same reason.

Goodluck. They look fine to me.