Thread: My First Restoration Attempts

Originally Posted by jdto

Bocote wood.

Thats what I thought, thanks!

I finally got time to work on the scales. I used a rotary tool to bevel the edges, then rounded everything with 150 grit. Then I polished up 220-400-600 and I think I'll leave it there, as they took a nice shine and should be ready for some sort of finish and then a buffing. It's pretty cool that I found two knots so similar-looking in two different parts of the board I used. I've also taken apart a couple of my recent W&B acquisitions, so I can start polishing up the blades. Unfortunately, only one set of scales is salvageable, so I will have to make another set. Poor me!

Here are some pics:

I really like the shape of those scales. Very nice. I've never worked with bocote. How is it to work?

Originally Posted by medicevans

I really like the shape of those scales. Very nice. I've never worked with bocote. How is it to work?

Well, I didn't find it too hard, but this is my first time, so I have no frame of reference. Maxi has a pretty sweet workshop and he's also a pretty good teacher, so that helps.

Whew, I just fixed the frowners and boy, was that a job! A couple of them required a good bit of work to get the edge back to a nice happy smile or at least straight. The barber's notch now has a gentle smile, though I had to grind down the stabilizers a bit on my DMT 325 to be able to lay it flat on the hone again, while the same thing happened with the spike point and the Bow Razor blade. I tried to do it on the Norton 220, but it's so soft they were just digging up the stone, so I moved to the DMT, which did the job quickly. Of course, the hollow grind was the easiest, but I finally got what I think is a nice blade profile on all of them, though I did lose some width. The 7/8" Barber's Use might need a bit more to get it back smiling, but at least the frown is gone.

Now it's time to start polishing, since I know they all are able to take a bevel again. I won't make the mistake I made on the Manhattan, where I had to go back and correct the uneven spine