The scales would not have broken if there wasn't already an issue with them. The pins in a vintage razor shouldn't have been that hard, either.

My guess is that someone tried to repin it in the past, and botched the job. They messed it up, and then got rid of it knowing they couldn't fix it correctly. Anything you did would have made it worse, so now you have an opportunity to make it much better.

You can either buy a new set of scales, or you can make a set to look like you want them to look. I chose to do the later. I had an old spike point blade that had a set of celluloid scales on it that were starting to rot. I decided to replace them,so I went and bought a small piece of maple to make the scales from, and then just started thinking through what I wanted it to look like when it's finished. I drew myself a pattern, then cut the maple to be slightly larger than my pattern, and started shaping them out.

When I ground the ends of the old pins off, I discovered that whoever had put the scales on it had used a plain 1/16"brass pin, but the blade had a 3/32 hole in it, so the blade was never being held in place correctly, anyway. I went to a local crafts store and bought a couple of pieces of 1/16" brass rod, and a couple of pieces of 3/32" brass tube (which happens to have a 1/16" ID).

Right now, I'm putting finish on the shaped scales, and hope to put them on and pin them in place either this weekend, or next week. I stained them lightly, and I'm using Cyanoacrylate glue for the finish, wiping it down with boiled linseed oil. It has a great, really deep looking finish on it.

My only regret is that I couldn't find some really highly figured maple to start with. I had to take what I could find, and I would have rather found something with more figure in it. Otherwise, I'm really happy with what I've got so far.

Go for it, Peter. The worst you can do is have to remake the scales if they don't turn out like you want them!