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Lots of the really nice restorations seen on this site have scales with a "non-standard" shape to them. I'm limited to tracing around an old scale to produce my blanks due to the fact that my free hand sucks.
Anyone got some patterns laying around that they'd be happy to share with me?
Cheers,
Rossco
None of mine come from patterns. I doubt most guys have scale templates either. I do what you do but my freehand is great. ;) It's all got to do with artistic taste. You have to make it your own based on your own preferences.Quote:
Originally Posted by rossco
Patterns!!!! we don't need no stinking patterns :roflmao:roflmao
Actually just use the old scales to get the correct curves from, then you only freehand the wedge and pivot ends.... then expand from there.....
I trace the outline of the blade onto a piece of cardboard (complete with pin hole), then I freehand the scale shape around it & cut it out.
I like to trace the blade on paper then use tracing paper and French curves to draw the shape. I freehand the shape of the ends.
Charlie
I sometimes make a template if it's something I'm likely to see again, so far I have most DD's, a few henckels, pumas, W&B's, Dovos and TI's. These are all wooden hardcopies, however, and I'm not really willing to part with them. Also, they are nothing you can't trace on your own from the originals.
I kinda thought I might be out of luck on this one.... Thanks for the pointers none the less though. My neighbour is a graphic designer so maybe I can poach some free assistance from her.
Congrats to those who can free hand some of the more impressive patterns though. Unless I stick with tracing the original scales I end up with something vaguely similar to the art in my daughters kindergarten class.
I could always say that I believe in maintaining a "classic" look to excuse my lack of creativity. Any thoughts?:shrug:
No shame in that!Quote:
Originally Posted by rossco
Quote:
Originally Posted by Philadelph
Aye.
Even the classic scales underwent some serious designing before production.
On a positive note. What I did was to draw around an old scale on cardboard and the experiment from there. When I was happy with a couple I then cut out hardboard and test fitted using the pin holes from old scales as makers
On from there you could find pictures of raxors/scales from sites copy to your pc. Print out in b&w - reducing the size to suit then do as above.
Scissors/cardboard and some ingenuity - you can get loads of variations
Beauty doing a prototype is that you can see what it looks like and do not waste wood
For a complete amateur like me this is important
The majority of scales that I make came from one basic scale design that I made a while ago and some slight variations there of to acompany different sized blades. I really like the way they look, so, I haven't really needed to make anymore.
I designed them using photoshop, but any graphics/drawing program that supports bezier curves (ie. pen tool) should work just fine. First I scanned in some existing scales and some razor blades so that I had the flat profile view of them. Then I opened up the images and traced out the existing shapes with bezier curves so that I had the basic shapes to work with. After that I just messed around with the curves to come up with my designs. I'd digitally overlayed the scale design on the razors I scanned so I could get an idea of how the blade would sit in it. Once I was satisfied I just printed them out, transfered the template to cardboard and used those.
all of my scales start as the traced blade and then i draw the scales to fit and mode how i want to get the look im after
then i cut out the scales and the spacer trace that on the Ti and grind it close
that way i can least make sure every thing will fit and clear when im done