Thread: wood for scales

A marine Tung oil would work nicely. It's water resistant, pops the grain of the wood, and you can wet sand with it to fill the pores making a nice smooth flat surface. Then you can leave as is, and a few coats of wax, or apply a wipe on poly or gunstock finish, the choices are pretty broad. Make sure to check to see if the finish will dry clear, or add its own flavor. You may apply something, and it can change the color of the lighter woods. I.E. amber shellac will add a yellowish/blonde hue to lighter woods, but natural shellac will dry clear as day. Hope that helps.

Here's a handy resource for comparing the appearance, hardness, density, durability, etc. of various woods:

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-identification/The Wood Database | The Wood Database

Even the less dense, softer woods can be made more durable by stabilizing with various products. I prefer a true hardener such as Minwax Wood Hardener but many have good results using only one of polyacrylics. Always experiment with the stabilizer or finisher on a test piece first since the process usually darkens the color.

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Good start, but too thick at the wedge area, the scales overwhelm the blade.

I think you got a good point, I thought about it but decided it maybe was ok. Strangely it is much more visible on picture then it was in real. I will do some more sandpapering. Thank you for your post :-)
Also I now saw that the blade on the picture is about 5 mm longer then the blade from the scale I copied, so i will need to use another blade then the one on the picture.