Thread: Hiding pins on antler scales

Hello all, this is my first post here, and I'm certainly a beginner, but I wanted to pose an idea I had.

I have a straight razor that needs some scales. I'm also going deer hunting this year and will, with any luck, have access to some antlers come mid-November. I would like to make 1 piece scales from an antler tine. I have some idea in how to proceed there thanks to the wiki.

I was wondering if anyone has tried to hide the hinge pin & washers of scales. My basic idea was to countersink the pin holes a bit and fill the hole (covering the pin et al.), sand it all smooth again, etc. No particular reason except that I thought it would look good. This has obvious ramifications for tightening or replacing the pins later, of course.

For covering the counter-sunk pin, I was wondering if using softened (boiled or soaked) antler pith would work? Basically boil an antler, scrape out some pith, pack the hole and let it dry.

I know it will bond well in making an antler handle for a full tang knife, for instance, but this isn't quite the same. Any opinions? Am I talking crazy talk?

I'll toss out the idea of making a dowel like they did in the old days: How To Make A Dowel-Cutting Tool Hopefully, you'll get a better match for the exterior of the antler. All you'd need to do is to find a piece of tubing of the right inside diameter and then sharpen the edges so that it cuts.

Originally Posted by red96ta

I'll toss out the idea of making a dowel like they did in the old days: How To Make A Dowel-Cutting Tool Hopefully, you'll get a better match for the exterior of the antler. All you'd need to do is to find a piece of tubing of the right inside diameter and then sharpen the edges so that it cuts.

The diagram shows the dowel being formed as a square piece of timber is knocked through a round hole in a flat plate. Not sure how a piece of antler would fare with that.

I can't help but feel that it's not a great idea though.
One piece scales in antler would be large. So large they'd look pretty awful I'd imagine.
In two pieces, the scales would have to be thicker to accommodate the dowel, so even that would look clumsy.
They'd be difficult to pin properly.
Finally, as you mention, the pin would then be buried, therefore making adjustment a complete pain.

Of course, this is merely my view.

Originally Posted by red96ta

I'll toss out the idea of making a dowel like they did in the old days...

I like it! In particular, I could see using it to to make a shape other than a circle when counter sinking and making the cover piece. A star, or sun, or whatever. In that case one could purposefully use contrasting colors of material and make it a design feature.

Of course... that moves counter to the starting idea of hiding the pins. None the less, I like it, thanks.

I'm no expert by any means and your Idea sounds very cool but just wanted to let you know that sometimes razor pins do need to be retightened. It may be very very rarely but it is worth considering. You could at least make it one pice and only have the pivot pin still I made some out of walnut and they look great.

Another option if you want to hide them is in the rough drawing I made I think it would work if you got a good fit on the 2 small covers there would only be a small line visible and if done right and before final sanding should blend quite well.

Buy Plug Cutter, 1/4" at Woodcraft.com Hear is an easy option they come in different sizes to.

Thanks, gandrw.

I like that drawing you posted. I could make the hinge pin side of the scales a little wider and longer than necessary and just cut the piece I'll be using as a cap directly off of the scales (so it will guaranteed match). That will remove some material, but since I made it wide to begin with, I could hopefully sand it back down to match the rest. Definitely worth practicing a couple times in good ol' pine 2x4 first :-).

All in all, I still have to weigh the end look with the pain in the rear if I ever need to tighten the pins. I could use old fashioned horse glue to put the cap on, in which case heating it up would enable me to remove the cap... supposedly anyway. It's recommended for antique furniture repair for that reason.

For pins, I'm tempted to try stainless steel microfasterns hardware with perhaps a dab of loctite to keep the nut from moving. The issue there would be the increased thickness of the nut making for yet thicker scales.

At any rate, lots of ideas to trial and error in pine. Maybe I'll find something suitable and be able to transfer it into antler material later this year.

I was thinking about it after I posted that and you could actually make the second piece go the whole length of the scale that would make it near invisible when finished. or even make the inner scales out of thin metal and the outer sleeved in a one piece antler scale. Given you use the right adhesive that would allow you to make the antler quite thin for better balance and looks but still be plenty durable. If you don't already have a program for sketching thins out look at Google sketch up. It's free and quite a nice program for the price.