Thread: Share your tricks to centering a blade in scales.

Firstly, I don't make scales so am at the mercy of vintage ones. Their warps and shrinks.
I have to correct what I have to fit what I have as the correction cannot be made into the scales.
An obvious thing to do is mock-up the bottom and see if a length of rod or something pushed through is level at the top before test-fitting the blade.

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If it is, a test-fit of the blade is appropriate. If not, how to proceed depends greatly upon scale material and the tang of the razor.
Some blades, particularly hefty tangs in horn, rely on the tang taper to spread the scales for blade entry. at times, omitting the spacers lets the tang do it's job perfectly. Then, at times, some judicious filing on the inside of one scale will even the closure up.

A bit of sawing the pin-holes, top and/or bottom a bit with a drill bit will often get things straight. Of course this will spoil pinning ivory or bone collarless.
Also, in doing this, you are laterally shifting the scales, so wedge-fit, etc can be effected.

Oversizing the pin-holes or slightly slotting them with a drill bit in the right direction(s) can help to a degree combined with directional peening.
Then, sometimes you have to push things the direction you want them to go and employ directional peening...
(Extreme example?)

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Un-moving and unforgiving old bone and ivory combined with a leaning tang makes for some heady experimentation.
Sometimes it works. Sometimes not. You always learn something, however!

https://straightrazorpalace.com/work...ng-blades.html

It can be frustrating, but I have learned to not go grinding at old scales and tangs to get there. Easy to take off and hard to put back!

You have to get an engineering mindset and think of what will get you where you want to be.
Occams razor often is the ticket. Oft-times I go all the way around the block and wind-up with something simple close to where I began.


Like...'Why didn't I try that FIRST?'

What I finally decided was to not over complicate it. Usually is a simple solution.