Thread: 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.

congratulations! i hope my first try turns out that well.

Red

Nicely done!!

I wish I had the setup and skill to do that. They look amazing, job well done

Dave

Nice Job- your pinning job is making me rethink just bolting my 1st restoration. Looks great!

Great work there! I applied the finish to mine before pinning though. I think pinning is worth the effort over micro fasteners. It looks cleaner.