Thread: Working with horn for first time..Any tips

I absoutly love the look of horn scales. So I ordered some horn 1/8in slabs from Masecraft. But they did not come in perfect condition
1. All 6 slabs were warped, does any one know a way to straighten them?
2. All six slabs varyed in thickness, enough to be noticeable, can I sand them with my belt sander or palm sander to even them up?
3. Any tips for polishing horn?
Any tips for working with horn would be greatly appreicated

Thanks Tony B

yeah, a good source for working with horn can be found in the restoration videos (and any of the restoration posts) by Undream. Brad really has a great process for getting the most out of horn.

To save you the trouble, here are the vids Straight Razor Restoration Start to Finish Video Series - Straight Razor Place Wiki

watch these and do some research on the restoration forum. Good Luck!

I shape mine with a belt sander, then move over to hand sanding. I find that if i go as far as 1200 grit with wet & dry paper, i can buff them to a mirror shine with a 4" or 6" wheel on an arbor in a drill.

I love horn too. Looks amazing & after polishing, you're done. No waiting for coats of finish to dry!

I just finished my first pair of horn scales and after the oil had dried I had an idea and decided to experiment, I just bought a tube of autosol that I used to polish some of my blades and a thought occurred to me, what if I used the autosol to polish the horn, soo I smeared on some aurosol on the scales and it was a great succes, it took less than ten minutes to hand-polish them up to a mirror shine.

How badly warped? How much material is there? I'd even them up on both sides, just to be sure both sides are flat. I have a set of scales that weren't 100% flat blanks and there is a bit of a warp to them.