Thread: Wooden Scale Advice

Originally Posted by parkerskouson

Last thing from! Some are just better at other things than others! You seem to be a really good stropper from what I can tell!

"My name is mapleleafalumnus and I'm addicted to stropping." because I'm a middle-aged man with few hobbies!
Get back to learning how to make beautiful scales -- I wanna learn, too!

Has anyone ever made scales out of teak?

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Has anyone ever made scales out of teak?

Go for it! I may try KOA wood sometime

I've made scales from Teak, Lignum Vitae, Oak, American Walnut, Welsh Yew which is my favourite, Ebony, Cocobolo, laburnum, and quite a few other hardwoods, if the wood is seasoned correctly and you seal it with gloss wax and polish it should last as long as you do. here's few for you to look at.

Jamie.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

a rasp is not the sort of tool one should use to shape scales,sorry but I have to disagree.

To clarify, coping saw to rough shape, rasp to finalize shape, sandpaper to smooth.

Originally Posted by AdamN

To clarify, coping saw to rough shape, rasp to finalize shape, sandpaper to smooth.

Agreed. No real need for a rasp on an 1/8" piece of wood. I think even with a fine rasp you may experience some tear out.

Coping saw to rough them in, 220 to rough in the curves and beveled edges, move up the grits from there.

Jamie --
Thanks for the pics! In your opinion, what is the ideal range of thickness for scales?
Respectfully,
mla

Jamie, those are some real nice looking scales. I like the teak with the mosaic wedge pin.

Mapleleaf, for my wood scales I like to cut to 1/8" and finish just under 1/8" somewhere right around .100". Or for you metric folk, cut to 4mm and finish them down to 2.5-3mm.

I don't like using a rasp or even a file on thin wood like this, I use 100 grit paper wrapped around a 1" dowel and that will take them down to shape very quickly.


-Xander

Originally Posted by fast14riot

BRGriff - look up a vacuum brake bleeder and mason jar. But don't confuse wood hardener with professionally stabilized wood. Very big difference.


-Xander

I have toyed around with the brake bleeder and even my FoodSaver. The FoodSaver gets the vacuum down to 20 in.Hg saving a lot of hand pumping. The brake bleeder then takes it down to 26 in.Hg. I would very much like to know how to "stabilize wood". Any information you are willing to share would be appreciated. If this thread is not the correct place for input, please PM me or start a new thread to which I can subscribe and learn. I really did think that the wood hardener and a vacuum pressure would stabilize the wood.

Randy

I would say about 4mm each scale, but some woods can behave different, and you may have to take this into account, Cocobolo can be quite brittle where as Lignum Vitae is one of the most dense hardwoods in the world, but somehow it's really nice to work with, Oak can be incredibly hard especially British Oak, Ebony is another wood which is brittle but also very hard to work, you also get a terrible amount of black dust while working Ebony, always wear a mask, i usually cut out the scales using a old vintage celluloid template with my coping saw then work everything by hand till i'm 100 per cent happy with the scales they are then joined firstly with masking tape to both the insides, then another piece of double sided tape so the are sandwitched together then i work them a little more till i feel they are a mirror copy of each other, drill the pivot hole and the hole for the back pin, then i part the scales and make the wedge and finally move to the mock build. PS if you are interested in stabilizing wood i will drop this video n so you can have a go yourself.


Jamie.

l

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

Jaime --
Thanks for the pics! In your opinion, what is the ideal range of thickness for scales?
Respectfully,
mla