Cleaning/Polishing Ivory, Bone, Etc.

[BigJim]

I was gifted this Clauberg Tonsorial Gem razor the other day and the handles are unlike anything I've run across in my very limited experience. All of my other razors have some sort of plastic or horn scales. This one feels different and looks different. From reading the threads here about ivory I think it MIGHT be ivory, but the scales are not very thin, so I don't know.

I'd really like to clean these scales up, but I don't want to do anything that might damage them if they are in fact ivory (or maybe ox bone or something).

Any tips?

Thanks!

[Theseus]

Toothpaste and a tooth brush are in my opinion one of the best ways to clean ivory and bone.

[pixelfixed]

some mild dish soap and warm water using an Oxyclean pad (mr clean magic eraser)
Polish with white diamond compound on a soft cotton wheel.
looks like celluloid tho.

[red96ta]

Looks like celluloid to me. Either celluloid or ivory will clean up with a rubdown using Mother's Polish.

[sharptonn]

That's celluloid. Scrub it good with diluted simple green, maybe a bit of Comet with a toothbrush. Don't soak it! Maas and paper towels!

[Mastershake]

I've never seen grain lines like that in ivory.

[sharptonn]

Any scales glued together at the wedge are cell. They did the lines to emulate ivory, I suppose?

[Theseus]

It may just be me trying to look at these pictures on my phone, but those scales kind of look like ash wood. I have an old baseball bat that has very similar tight graining. Also same color.

[BigJim]

I'm going to play around with this one tonight some when I get home.

The feel of it tells me it isn't plastic...but I could be wrong. There's a first time for everything right?

The lines made me think maybe it was ivory or perhaps some other kind of bone. There are no pits at the ends of it like bone has. The lines are tight for the most part, but wavy, unlike any faux ivory I've seen.

At this point I'm guessing that I'm probably wrong, and they're probably plastic, but we'll see if I can't learn more about them through the cleaning process tonight.

Thanks!

The thickness of the scales make me think it isn't ivory.

The fact that it's glued together makes me think it sin't ivory.

How it's glued together, with a locking notch makes me think it isn't plastic (see pics 2 and 5), but again, I could be wrong.

Ash or Birch crossed my mind as both are very tight grained woods, but if it's one of these the finish on these is really something amazing, because it doesn't feel like any finished wood I've ever been around.

[str8fencer]

A small touch of a hot needle inside the scales will tell you if it is a natural material or not. The smell will reveal the material.