Thread: Polishing Faux Tortoise, Need Advice

I recently bought a 4x6" piece of faux tortoise shell material from Texas Knife supply and I need to know the best way to cut and polish it. I intend to cut it in half first and then use two sided tape to piece the halves and then cut out the pattern. I bought it with the intentions of using for a 7/8 wedge blade. The material cost me $15 plus shipping so I really don't want waste it by errors. I found this method by looking at some blanks that I had made and some that I made. IT seems easier to drill the holes better so that when I split the pieces all I have to do is sand and finish the wood. With the polishing, I have no clue to go about it. DO I use sandpaper or polish directly or how do I do it? However, I don't know how this will work with Faux Tortoise material. I am hoping that someone here will guide me because the finished products with the material are really nice.
Thanks

You might PM glen or max, I've seen them post about polishing up these types of scales... off the top of my head I thought they went up a sandpaper progression up to 12k micromesh, then used very fine polishing compounds.

I'd bet you can cut it with a coping saw just fine... at least micarta is no problem to cut... just a thought.

most acrylics I work with I sand to 1000 or 2000 (if you have it) and polish with automotive head light polish.

Trey,

there's several way to do this.

Basically you can cut, saw and sand similar to the way you would with wood. Whatever you do, be sure not to inhale the dust. Even worse, if you don't have a dust collector or some kind of vacuum cleaner you'll have acrylic particles everywhere.

You can sand it all the way up to 12000 micro mesh if you like, or like Aaron said stop at a lower grit and continue with some plastic polish or use a low rpm buffer with the right wheels and compounds.

Always make sure to remove all scratches before moving up to the next grit. One forgotten scratch will show up if not properly removed moving forward.

Hey Aaron, what brand of headlight polish do you use?

one option is called "Blue Magic". I don't know if Aaron uses that or not though.