Thread: Tip for working bone

I have been working on bone inlays for 3 weeks now (on and off).
My biggest problem is making it thin enough.

I don't have a belt sander, so I tried a lot of things. Up until yesterday, the best thing I had was a bastard file for wood. It was still as slow as snails on prozac, running uphill.

Then I found something better (I won't mention all the stupid things I tried before that) which worked relatively fast: a straight razor!

I have an old, rusted razor hangin on a hook in the garage, to use as a blade for experimenting, with a side business as a box cutter.
It is still sharp, though not shave ready.

I held the bone flat with my left hand, and with the right I held it orthogonally with the bone, so that the edge was resting on the bone.
Then I applied some pressure, and scraped it back and forth.
I could see the bone come off in very fine flakes, which was a lot better than everything else I've tried.

The razor I used was a hollow ground. I suspect a wedge would be even better, but I have none to try it with.

I think an easier tool to use would be a very sharp scraping steel (for scraping paint from wooden panels) but I don't have one.

Have you tried just a plain old woodworking plane?

No.
I don't have one. Planing it obviously won't work since the bone is too small, but if you'd take the blade out of it, I suppose it would work wonders as well.

Weather you are useing a plane or a razor or any other blade, you can try putting the bone you are working on between two pieces of scrap wood. have the part you want to remove sticking up (use old newspaper or shop clothes to change the hight of what is sticking up) then plane away. And of course it goes with out saying (so why am I saying it) the sharper the blade the better.