First go at making scales.
Evening all, I'd wanted to rescale a couple of my wapi's as presents for a while and christmas finally gave me the nudge. I picked up some 1/8" walnut at a craft shop and some 1/2" lacewood from ebay. I don't have much of my woodworkshop these days and hand planing and sanding the lacewood was a bitch, it's seriously hard stuff. Still, got it down to thickness eventually.
Traced out the scales and cut to rough size with a coping saw, I could almost hear my shop teacher saying 'afraid to cut to the line, Peer?' Hand sanded down, and down, and down, then down the grades. Laborious but ended up with a lovely smooth finish to the wood.
Thanks to the tutorials on here I made my own pins after scouring london for the appropriate sized washers, of which I now have a bag of 100, so should be set for a while. Couldn't find many places selling ball-peen hammers, but found a tatty one in a junk shop and just polished up the peen side a bit, and it does the job.
I'm planning to finish them with danish oil and wax, unless anyone suggests a reason not to. I like the feel of wood finished that way rather than the plasticky surface of epoxy or similar, find I can grip it better.
Anyway, not perfect but better than I expected for limited facilities and I have an idea on how to improve for next time. Now I just have to hone the blades and oil the scales and they'll (a little belatedly) go to their new owners, one for the only other friend I have who straight shaves and one for my step-father who sounded interested when I told him about my shaving adventure.
Thank you to everyone who's put the time and effort into creating tutorials here and putting up so much information.
Cheers,
Justin.
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