Thread: Question about scale stock

I am brand new to this restoration phase but unfortunatly for my wife I do not know how to leave well enough alone and I jumped in. I have spent many hours on the blade and have it ready to put back into scales. The razor was an ebay $2.00 practice piece. The scales were broken when I got it so I just took them off. My problem is this I have gone to knifekits.com and texasknifemaker.com the scales on this razor were 5 1/2 inches long but the only scale stock I can find comes in a max length of 5 inches. I wanted to use water buffalo horn since I have worked horn before. Any ideas where to get longer scales or how to go about getting the shorter stock to fit. I have searched the forum and could not find anything to help with this. Thanks for the help

classic shaving sells scales. easy to do and fast.

try hobby stores for oak blanks.

wood working stores for hardwood and exotic blanks. rockler, woodcraft. most sell 2x6x1/8" blanks.

good luck.

vgod

These horn blanks I ordered from Masecraft did the trick for me, and should work for you if you have a saw to rip the slab to the right thickness. Remember to cut them a little thicker than 1/8" if you want to round off the outer surfaces of your scales. Good luck!!!

Thanks for that link that is what I was looking for they also have some other stuff that I was wanting to get. Again thank you for the link.

Originally Posted by mrbhagwan

These horn blanks I ordered from Masecraft did the trick for me, and should work for you if you have a saw to rip the slab to the right thickness. Remember to cut them a little thicker than 1/8" if you want to round off the outer surfaces of your scales. Good luck!!!

I'm also in the process of working with that exact same slab from Masecraft (Joe Chandler originally suggested Masecraft as a source to me quite awhile ago).

We a breather mask!! Horn is el stinko when it's cut, but you already know that if you've worked with it before.

Chris L

Yes it does stink bad when you work with it. The last time I worked horn was to make a powder horn for black powder shooting. The smell was so bad that my wife made me work it outside at the time we lived in Montana right off the Canadian border and it was January so that inspired me to work faster. Thanks for the tip Have you worked any of the synthetic Ivory they sell?

I haven't worked with the paper ivory yet. I'm tempted but what's putting off my order of that kind of product is that I've heard it's very prone to staining from polishing compound (green, jewlers rouge, etc) when it's put on the buffing wheel. I think I read that in Jantz Supply's catalog.

I'm going to try the black paper micarta soon because that looks like a perfect replacement for slick black scales.

Chris L

I may have to order a small piece just to play around with to see if I can get something out of it without staining it. A small investment and something fun to do cant go wrong there

"Horn-Stink" is merely the smell of craftsmanship! I only wish they sold the blond horn blanks in that size.

I'm also eyeing the cast polyester for a set of scales. It should look great if I can get it cut and polished the way I'm envisioning it.

Good idea.

A question for you: I know nothing about the composition of cattle horn other than what it looks like from an exterior view. Is the entire interior of a cattle horn hollow? Is half of it sold and half hollow? If so, which half is solid, the base half or the end/tip half?

Chris L