Thread: Some info on Horn......

I found this info at.....

Horn Furniture of Herman Metz Article

The use of cattle horn added to a furniture surface is quite old. A French furniture maker, Andre Charles Boulle made use of horn, ivory, and brass as an overlay on furniture as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. The process of cutting, shaping and flattening cow horns into thin sheets dates back to the time of the Romans.
Cattle horns are a protein matter called keratin, the same as our hair and fingernails. The outer horn that you see on an animal’s head actually covers a bony inner core that is a part of the animal’s skull and is held in place by a thin layer of sticky, fleshy membrane. When removed by natural drying or in boiling water, this outer horn is found to basically hollow and grows in layers of uneven thickness. It is most thin at the base and thickens to a solid tip.
There are at least two methods to produce horn veneer. In the 1700’s, European horn crafters would cut horn into various sized pieces, soaking it in hot water or oil for softening. (Horn becomes very pliable when subjected to heat, especially hot water.) The horn was then flattened, placed in wooden clamps or between hot iron plates treated with tallow, and pressed to the desired thickness. Another method was to put the pieces in boiling water. After a time, the layers would begin to separate, possibly due to the fact that there is a thin layer of liquid between them. These sheets of horn would then be flattened, allowed to dry, cut, shaped and fitted to a wooden surface, producing horn veneer. Allowing that the separated layers of horn are not identical in their thickness, it seems likely the craftsman would attempt to even the thickness of the cut pieces as much as possible before application. If he found any variance after application, he probably removed it by a light finish sanding to produce the desired smooth surface. This, of course, would depend on how near a perfectly-smooth surface the craftsman wanted. Not all veneering will be found table-top smooth. To date, I’ve seen two veneered pieces with uneven surfaces.
In its natural state, the horn has a rough surface After being softened in the hot water, this roughness can be scraped smooth with a straight-edged instrument. This scraping can be done before or after the horn is cut into pieces and, from my experience, it is much easier to sand or scrape the horn before cutting it. A final polishing produces a beautiful finish. In today’s world, machine sanding of a dry horn is common practice.


Also......

http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/horn/horng.html

Nice Read !!
Thanks for posting it Randy

A lot of good information. Thanks, Randy.

Originally Posted by randydance062449

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... It is most thin at the base and thickens to a solid tip ....

I love that bit Randy! It reminds me of something from Monty Python when the scientist explains his new theory about dinosaurs - "...thin at one end, thick in the middle, thin at the other end - and don't go claiming this as your own theory..."

Seriously though, it must have been done differently in the UK. After boiling for a prolonged period the inner core was extracted, the tip was cut off and the horn was held in pincers while sliced up the middle then pulled apart with another pair of pincers, put on a preheated and greased steel plate with another plate on top of it, the whole being in a steel cage and the process being repeated until all the bits of horn were separated by steel plates in the cage, then wedges were driven in to drive the plates together and the whole thing left to cool, usually under the ground. If they didn't use a pincer to hold the horn, the top was cut off and a conical pre-heated and greased steel former or a greased wooden one was used, the horn being placed on it and pushed down so it could be cut up the middle, then the same process was undergone.

This resulted in horn plates. If the pressure was too great, natural laminations became evident, spoiling the appearance. As it was, the horn usually split at the edges. The plates were sold on for use by people like comb and button makers, but if thin sheets were necessary for veneers - or more usually for lantern (=lant-horn) makers, it was softened again by boiling in oil to just under the heat of molten lead, and repressed. This made it more translucent. When cool it was found to delaminate more easily, and was split into sheets, softened again in oil, and re-pressed.

Water was only used in the preliminary stages (inner core removal) as it does get hot enough to properly mould the horn, or make blond horn translucent - only oil reaches this temperature. As for thicknessing it, a twin-handled drawknife was used and another boiling in oil and pressing to the desired thickness finished the job. The drawknife (a sort of plane without the body, more like a long spokeshave or scraper) was usually only used in the case of blemishes on the outer layer, the press being well able to thickness the sheets on its own.

How do we know all this? Because there is a wealth of printed literature produced in the heyday of the horn pressers, which is still available. Horn pressing in the UK was a very common practice and a source of employment to many people - like the Cutlers and other professions, they had their own guild and set of rules. The main centre of operations in the UK was originally London, but the boiling, etc, produces such nasty smells that complaints drove them to the limits of the city until eventually the main centre became situated at Sheffield. That was already so full of smoke, cinders, stinks, noise and dust that the horn pressers seemed innocuous!

Regards,
Neil