Thread: First set of scales under way

Good Morning,

You seemed to have a quick turn over there making those scales last night. You are really into this which is a good thing! They look pretty good for a first run congrats! I myself wanted to get into making some scales and I think I will try it a bit with my uncle sometime soon.

They look like scales to me! Nice job!

I agree.

You should pop that blade off, finish off the scales (higher grit polish), rub some truoil or renaissance wax onto it (or both), slap in a purddier
Blade, and call it a day! Or, straight razor.....

C utz

They are not as nice as they look in the pictures, I assure you. Or maybe I just have very high standards, I don't know. Anyway, the scales are of uneven thickness due to my lack of practice with the jig saw, and the wedge is a bit off-center, so the opening along one side of the skales is wider than on the other side, which doesn't look very good. Those are things I will correct with the next set of scales.

I have a heap of the same wood to work with, and no shortage of other materials, so I'm pretty sure the other four blades I have will get better scales.

Nice job! I will be starting on my first rehab and re-scale project later this week. I hope mine turns out at least half as good!

Originally Posted by minstrel

Anyway, the scales are of uneven thickness due to my lack of practice with the jig saw

You can easily solve that with a file or a dremel / beltsander, followed by sandpaper.
I split the wood with a standard saw, sand it flat, stick them together with double sided tape and then take away wood from the outside until I have a nice symmetrical set of scales.

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can easily solve that with a file or a dremel / beltsander, followed by sandpaper.

I think those scales would be "waffer thin" if I tried that. They're pretty thin already, especially in the thinnest places.

I cut up one of the more interesting looking boards of wood I had and made scale blanks outof it. I didn't even use up all the board. The pic is of the blanks. Yes, I made five blanks but only have four blades, but one blank is cut against the grain, so I fully expect those scales to snap at some point. I just cut those out as an experiment, since it shows the most variation in the pattern.

I shaped them with my disc/belt sander, but I won't use that to shape them any more. From now on I will use files and hand sanding to shape them further. The blanks are about 10 mm thick at the moment, so using them as single scales is impractical (would have to sand them down a lot, which is a waste of wood), so I really need to split them. Just hope I can do a better job of it this time around.

The wood really smells strong when you work it. I wear a dust mask, but I still smelled it. Either it smells on its own, or I managed to burn it a bit when I was sanding it...

Originally Posted by Bruno

You can easily solve that with a file or a dremel / beltsander, followed by sandpaper.
I split the wood with a standard saw, sand it flat, stick them together with double sided tape and then take away wood from the outside until I have a nice symmetrical set of scales.

Bruno, it sounds like you start with one piece of wood and make a "bookmatched" set. Is that correct? When splitting down the middle, how do you make sure each piece is the same thickness? You must use a saw with a very small kerf. What thickness do you start with, and how thick is each scale after the cut?

Well, today being Friday the 13th maybe I should have refrained from trying to split those scale blanks? I managed to ruin one blank by sawing waaaay too crooked, and the cross-cut blank snapped like I thought it would. One other blank is maybe beyond salvaging too, but the final two should be ok. In fact I made a perfectly good set of scales from one of those blanks. They're really thin, but they do look great. The wood has a sort of golden sheen when it's polished, and it looks like it changes color slightly when you view it from different angles. Very nice.