Ivory scale repair question
Hi Folks,
I was recently working on re-pinning a very delicate and fine-profiled set of ivory scales and had a major "oh #*!?" moment when tapping out a poorly peened pin which I needed to do over. I was tapping it out over a small hole in my wooden work bench when the bottom scale shattered! Stupid move, the hole I was tapping over was too large and didn't properly support the scale in the vicinity of the hole. It just about broke my heart. The razor is one of a matched pair of very nice old Sheffield made razors that are wonderful shavers and came in a beautiful hard case.
Three small pieces of scale shattered around the pin hole and I was sure the scales were a total loss. Then I started messing around with the pieces. They were very small and very thin, (the scales are quite thin). Lo and behold, I could get then to fit together beautifully and without doing any research, (yes, I tend to be impulsive in the shop), I laid them out on a sheet of wax paper and glued them up with two part West System epoxy. It worked like a charm, and now I'm looking for advice on how to proceed with the repair.
Questions:
Has anyone out there repaired ivory scales with epoxy?
Should I gently sand down the excess layer of epoxy covering the repair, or leave it in place?
Should I add a laminate of some sort to the back of the repair to reinforce it, or leave it as is?
Do I dare drill the pin hole out with a standard bitt or do I run the risk of splitting the repair?
Are there abrasive covered "bores" small enough to use in a Dremel tool that would be a safer way to drill out the hole?
I've got more questions on the best way to proceed once the repaired scale is ready, but I'll take this one step at a time.
Thanks for reading my post!
Bruce