Thread: Celluloid?

Besides the fact that real celluloid is a fire hazard if you are not careful, is there a difference between the look of real celluloid tortoise compared to acrylic tortoise? Or does nobody really use either anymore cause G10, bone, and horn is what's happening now?

I was checking out Masecraft and they have some mosaic opal celluloid that looked pretty interesting too.

Moved to the "Workshop" to get the attention it deserves...

I haven't used the "New" celluloid myself so I will wait until somebody who has,,, pipes up...

I think Maximillan did a restore with that. It looked great!

I have a few samples of the mentioned celluloid. It goes up in flame on the belt sander, stinks and I don't find it worthy for straight razor scales. I believe a few have tried or used them but eventually they dropped it and switched to the acrylic ones. I personally never used the celluloid one. I think Brad might have once in the early stages. (but not sure). The acrylic ones are fine. They cut, sand and shape very easy.

I like celluloid. In fact, just posted my latest made with masecraft supplied material here.

Indeed, care is to be used to watch out for flame ups. This makes for more tedious shaping. Also no high speed drilling, but easily drills with just a bit in your finger tips. Keep a bucket of water close by to dip in.

I think it hand sands a little easier easier though. IMO it handles daily wear and tear with a little more warmth. No, not from combustion

Wow, that blue opal stuff looks great! Pretty much what I imagined. Did Masecraft charge the hazmat fee for shipping? I found another joint that has tortoise celluloid in stock but they wanna charge the hazmat fee on top of the shipping. I understand why, but it is not cost effective to buy only one piece and then pay the fee. Besides that I found a couple luthier supply joints that have a pretty sweet election of different tortoise configs but none of it thick enough. A lot of .030...

Sticking with acrylic might be the way to go, that and I do have probably 300lb (literally) of jade green G10 in my workshop. The diamond blade and surface grinder are my friends!

Originally Posted by gixxer

Did Masecraft charge the hazmat fee for shipping? Besides that I found a couple supply joints that have a pretty sweet election of different tortoise configs but none of it thick enough. A lot of .030...

I haven't really paid attention to shipping charges. It may be one of my many down falls, but generally, scale material cost isn't a huge concern for me. I find, in general, when a 4x6 price costs $10, $15, $50 each plus shipping x however many pieces I get, that's ok for me. When I like the material, finding one slab is fine for multi razors, and residual for wedges, all is good.

Yes suppliers are limited. The Texas Knife tortoise shell you are probably referring to, I have been happy with. It is a very tight, almost repeative pattern. For the small confines of a razor scale, often that is ok. A smaller pattern is more forgiving against the contours of the scales. This also leads to less waste, and more scales per square inch of material.

The thinner material you noted might be ok as an inlay. You are right. Do not consider as a scale material.

Don't know that I should tout the virtures of Celluloid vs Acrylic vs G10. Heck that would be a whole new, passionate post. Heated debate of many participants surely would ensue.

...Ok one idea. If you are comfortable with a certain material, such as G10, play with it. If you use it for industrial needs, pay attention doing finish work. Final sand and polish beyond a production standards.

Thanks for the info! I know what you mean about the finishing. That stuff I got pretty much strictly for knife scales. I love how the stuff gets translucent when cut real thin and sanded to 1000 and buffed lightly.

Yes Celluloid is finicky stuff but it was used universally for a long time and also remember most of the razors we see are old and not in the best of shape. There are things you can do with celluloid you couldn't do with anything else in the old days. Now acrylic comes the closest but you could do very ornate patterns that looked like hand carvings and some very beautiful patterns.