Thread: Making wood scale question

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

I like to hand shape from time to time. Rasps, sure forms and the like work well. If you really want to know I can tell you how to make a great shaping rasp from used bandsaw blades that people throw away.

this would be appreciated

To make the rasp you need from 1/2" to 1" bandsaw blade. Cut at about 4-6" intervals. Stack pieces of blade together. If the tpi is low you can stagger the teeth. With thinner blades they need to be shorter length too. Stack until you make the width you want. Use a little CA glue along the backs of the blades. If using a thicker blade you can drill through the blades and add a support bolt or rivet. Wrap one side with tape. This depends on whether you want a push or pull cut on the rasp.
I do have longer ones, but they require more support rivets (brass rod).
Tpi regulates how heavy it cuts.
Remember to sharpen before assembling and don't get CA on the teeth.
Almost all of my carving rasps are made by this method. I even have a couple with hack saw blades.
If you want to get creative use very thin blades on a curved piece of wood add epoxy and see where it goes.
Also if you can't find blades that thick for free in the tpi you want just epoxy to a flat wood backer for support.

I started making my own scales recently, I've made quite a lot though(30-40 "good" sets finished) and I've got a few tips and suggestions. I haven't watched many of the videos on making them so some of this might have been said already.

-practice on cheaper materials first, generally wood like purpleheart or bocote and just try different techniques and finishes. At first I found it hard to get an even coat of
epoxy or CA, that after sanding would be the same thickness all around the scale.

-coat the inside of the scales first with whatever finish you like, then do the outside part.

-if doing acrylic it's best to cut it by hand with a coping saw since scroll saws can EASILY melt and warp the acrylic. I've dine it many times and sometimes it isn't noticeable until you try to assemble the razor.

-since the scales are curved, it helps to wrap sandpaper around some type of cylinder to do the inside, or top of the scales. I use a autobody handsander that holds the sandpaper and the curve is almost perfect for razors. Gives a nice, smooth curve since it contacts the whole edge while sanding. A large bucket works to and just tape a sheet of sandpaper to the side.

-if you use a saw, cut a bit bigger than your traced line to allow for removing material when sanding.

-Allow for the thickness of the finish coats, especially CA or epoxy.

Just some stuff I learned the hard way. Also, if you get even a cheap bandsaw it will let you use anything to make materials. As long as it has a fence you can easily cut 6" lo g by 1/8" blanks. Good luck and be a little creative.



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I made a sanding block out of a 2x4 & contoured the 3.5" surface on the belt sander to get the inside curve of the scales right. I would always have an imperfection there until I did that. Good info above...

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

To make the rasp...

Thanks for that deighaingeal.

I was looking around for a little more information on something like this, and came across this link, which some of you may like: Woodworkers Institute - Forums: A use for a Broken Bandsaw Blade
It takes deighaingeal's idea one step further and mounts the blades in a piece of aluminum channel as a handle.

Originally Posted by HNSB

Thanks for that deighaingeal.

I was looking around for a little more information on something like this, and came across this link, which some of you may like: Woodworkers Institute - Forums: A use for a Broken Bandsaw Blade
It takes deighaingeal's idea one step further and mounts the blades in a piece of aluminum channel as a handle.

I'll have to try that!

I've just put my cabinetmaker's hat on, so here goes:

You can get by with a coping saw, sandpaper and 1/16" drill bits, and that's it, barring finishing materials. Not that I'd want to, mind. Normally I bring the full resources of a large well equipped workshop to bear because it's available, but failing that I really do think access to a decent bandsaw is well worth arranging, chiefly for resawing timber into thin blanks. It'll be well worth paying a modest bribe to someone to have this done, and possibly to get the timber run through a calibration sander at the same time because hand thicknessing awkward timbers is not the fun part of the job.

Assuming that you now have a pair of rectangular scale blanks, what I do, and I imagine most others as well, is to glue them together with a layer of thickish card in between. The point is to make a solid joint, but one which can easily be induced to fail when you want to separate the halves. You can split them with a thin knife or a razor blade, and it goes easier if you wet the card beforehand. Thinned down PVA glue is fine for gluing up the blanks.

Cutting out the blanks to the desired shape is straightforward enough, either carefully with a coping saw doing your best to keep the blade square to the timber, or on a bandsaw. The outline can then be refined by sanding, and here is where shaped sanding blocks pay dividends. I can't emphasise this enough: for all the shaping processes, use a block wherever you can. I have dozens of pieces of MDF (is that Medite in the US?) cut to different radii for this sort of thing; they keep shapes crisp and even.

Drill your holes whilst the blanks still have flat surfaces, and use a pillar drill if at all possible. If not, two carpenter's squares standing on the bench will help to give an idea of when the drill bit is perpendicular, but really this part of the job should be done with as much precision as possible.

To get the rounded profiles, coarse sandpaper and a series of blocks is a crude but effective way to go; cabinet scrapers are a boon if you know how to sharpen them. One temptation worth avoiding is the spokeshave as most commonly encountered varieties of this tool are crude, cumbersome and incapable of dealing with difficult grain, no matter how sharp the blade. Good wooden shaves and the old Stanley No. 53 adjustable mouth version are honourable exceptions, but all spokeshaves are of limited use on a project which can't easily be held in a vice. Violin planes are a possibility, ruinously expensive to buy but they can be made to suit if you feel inclined. A good penknife or a scalpel can come in very handy.

Finish sanding is when you put the blocks aside and use your fingers and a light touch; by this stage the final shape has been established. It is good practice to wet the timber between grits to raise the grain. Everyone enjoys doing this because it gives you a preview of what the wood will look like with a finish on, but don't get that card too wet or the two halves might come apart prematurely ... no, it hasn't happened to me yet, well, not on razor scales it hasn't!

Finishing is another subject, and not my forte, so I'll confine my closing comments to choice of materials. Pretty much any hard wood will work: note that I didn't say "hardwood". Most mahoganies would be a poor choice because they are comparatively soft, for instance, whilst yew (technically a softwood) is quite suitable. If you can mark the timber easily with a thumbnail, it's probably better to find something more resilient. Good options would include all the ebonies; most rosewoods and their cheaper commercial cousins like bubinga; anything called "ironwood", "leadwood", "steelwood" - you get the idea, and there are dozens; satinwood; olivewood; padauk; secupira; hornbeam and so on. The final choice will be down to appearance. Wedges tend to be made from small scraps of very hard material: bone, horn, metal, Corian and the like.

If anyone's made it this far, thanks for bearing with me, and I hope someone might find some of that useful.

Seriously everyone, thanks a lot. You all kick ass! Love this place.

Originally Posted by Arrowhead

...

To get the rounded profiles, coarse sandpaper and a series of blocks is a crude but effective way to go; cabinet scrapers are a boon if you know how to sharpen them. One temptation worth avoiding is the spokeshave as most commonly encountered varieties of this tool are crude, cumbersome and incapable of dealing with difficult grain, no matter how sharp the blade. Good wooden shaves and the old Stanley No. 53 adjustable mouth version are honourable exceptions, but all spokeshaves are of limited use on a project which can't easily be held in a vice. Violin planes are a possibility, ruinously expensive to buy but they can be made to suit if you feel inclined. A good penknife or a scalpel can come in very handy. ...

Thank you, Arrowhead! Nice review discussion. My only comment is that I have found a well tuned spokeshave (yes, Stanley with adjustable mouth) to be great for shaping scales after roughing them with a coping saw. I clamp the glued blanks into a six inch vise and move them around a few times. Much quicker than sanding.

For finishing of woods; after sanding my way down to 2000 paper, I find that Tru-Oil, 10-12 coats with a light buffing with very fine steel wool in between brings out a lot of natural beauty in wood.