Thread: What is your favorite scale material

When you make scales for restores or custom scales for people what is your favorite material to work with and which one do you just cringe and consider taking off your list of materials to use?

I currently have only worked with wood and printed circuit boards. I have seen the threads on horn so will stay away from that for a while but am looking for other materials to make unique and interesting scales as well as making more classical looking ones as well for my personal growing stable of straights.

When restoring a razor i like to keep the looks as original as possible. Most my razors are old so the scale material i've used is horn or bone. I've used celluloid as well: i have several celluloid scales from old broken blades, just waiting to get back to service.

For some reason i do not fancy wooden scales. Maybe i'm just too careful, but i do not like the idea of water touching wood. I'm little scary for the hard coatings like CA on wood also. Have some not-so-nice experiences with knife handles where hard coating showed out to be very slippery when wet
Still have to admit that some wooden scales i've seen look really beautiful.

While I haven made anything but a few wood scales, still working on some micharta burls sent to me....

I'm more interested in working with classic/old stock scales. I tend to stick with natural materials, I have endless troubles with plastics and such

I love Horn!!! More so the translucient horn. Its not to heavy, naturally beautiful and feels good in my hand. But it does have its draw backs. Though it can be easy to work with and requires no finish. But it all depends on the stock you recieve. Warping and delaminating are the 2 huge problems I have indured working with horn. But when it all come together right to me theres nothing like it.
Surprisingly, I have found that acrylic worked very similar to horn in respects as far as shaping sanding and buffing and also does not require a finish, and there was 0 warping or delaminating problems like horn. I have only finished 1 project with the acrylic. But was very pleased with the results.
Tony

Black palm is an absolute PITA to work with, but it looks sooo good when/IF you get it right. I really like to work with Ebony/African Blackwood, it's sooo dense and you don't have to use a finish on it & when you do use a finish it's even more beautiful. The more I think about it, any real dense (love the exotics) hardwood is what I like. Picked up some bamboo from a local flooring place the other day and am going to give it a try here soon.

Hmmmm Tuff question...

I don't have one anymore

To have on my personal razors = Cracked Ice Celluloid, God I love that stuff..

To work with = Olivewood, probably the easiest wood there is to make scales out of, even smells good when yer working..

To look at = Some of the new acrylics that after you polish them they look 3-D

One thing I have learned though, there is no perfect material, each has a unique set of problems it brings to the bench...

Speaking from the point of view of an end user, not a restorer, I like acrylic. It is cool to have razors with exotic scale material, and I do, but the stability and relatively low cost option of acrylic is what attracts me to that material.

I have alot of wood for a typical knife maker . I without a doubt have in excess of 4 k worth of wood only a few good types I dont have and havent got them yet. The nicest looking of all exotic woods hands down is probably snake wood. Snake wood is the worst wood to make anything with and is also one of the most expensive im getting rid of my snake wood soon . What happens is when sanding the heat builds up and causes the wood to virtually crack inside then in 3 or 4 weeks the cracks will appear. some cracks will actually snap the scales I dont and wont use it any more. I love amboyna and have a good stock pile, I also have a good pile of iron wood I love that stuff is very good around water because it is very oily. Cocobolo is another oily wood but like maple burl as long as its stabilized other wise dont use it. I stabilize wood profesionally so water on my scales would never be a problem. Did I mention I love redwood burl lmao

Having no particular scale making skills myself I would have to say that my favorites are whatever Gman and Max are using that day.

olive smells great when working
but on the other side i hate bone and horn

most woods thon im ok with (99% of the time i have my respirator onn )