Thread: Pinned my first set of scales today!

Looks good, though hard to tell as the pics are a little blurry. My 1st pinning job was only slightly less scary than cutting my son's umbilical cord.

Is the blade tight and centered, and most importantly, will it stay tight in the open stropping position? I have found that if it has loose spots, to just keep turning it over and tapping as I tighten it up at all points between closed and all the way open-I like a tight blade for honing and stropping! I recently cut a pivot pin just a hair too long and gave up trying to tighten it-just repinned it: live and learn.

One more thing that I learned on here, it might have been from Euclid/Marty or some other mentor. If you filed and smoothed your pin heads and used a polished peening hammer, but they still look a little beat up, try this (if you have a drill press, though I suppose a dremel might work):

Start by rubbing pins vigorously on a damp 3000 sanding pad or similar. This will do a LOT, but you're not done!
Put hole protectors from the office supply store around your pin and collar if you want to protect your scales.
Take an old-school wooden pencil with an eraser, cut it to length, and tighten the wooden part up in your chuck.
Dab your favorite metal polish on the eraser, your pins, etc.. Turn on and spin away using moderate pressure and moving things around until the hammer marks are smoothed out. Those erasers do a good job of buffing IME.

You can try doing this by hand, too, but it would take a lot longer. You can also buff the hammer marks out to a degree if you're careful using a cotton wheel and something like Fabuluster. Clean up with mineral spirits or other solvent and q-tips, rags, etc. Buffing and polishing compounds can be tricky to get out of those gaps!