A new project...

[PhilB]

I'm going to call the blade good enough for now. Hard to tell in the sunlight, but there are still some fine scratches. I didn't want to be too aggressive on the blade, seeing how thin it is!

All sanding from 320 to 2500 was by hand, then green rouge on the buffing wheel, red rouge on the buffing wheel, and final polish by hand.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Nice job - you've got yourself a beautiful blade!

 

[Toro Blanco]

It's so clean!

Well done!

 

[Bevel]

Have you decided on what type of scales to make?
Page 3 of the attactched PDF has a Henckels scale you could use.
I would suggest tracing slightly outside the template lines to make the scales that tiny bit bigger than required which leaves room to play with as you hone in on what will be the final shape.

 

[Frank Shaves]

Page 3 of the attactched PDF has a Henckels scale you could use.

Assuming the blade is about 6/8 inch, excellent idea!

 

[Ice-Man]

That is going to turn out a fantastic razor for sure, but I would go with kirinite Pearl or black horn. But I was the person who bought a scrap dubl duck wonderedge for the inlays for mine as the scales on mine was starting to of gas and yes you can remove the inlays with acetone.

But your razor came with black scales as original those Dubl Duck scales were put on to that blade by somebody else but the dubl ducks are fantastic razors to restore i have done all of mine including giving them the gold wash back

 

[PhilB]

Have you decided on what type of scales to make?
Page 3 of the attactched PDF has a Henckels scale you could use.
I would suggest tracing slightly outside the template lines to make the scales that tiny bit bigger than required which leaves room to play with as you hone in on what will be the final shape.

I haven't decided on material yet, I'm trying to see what I can find locally first, then nationally online. Shipping from the US can often be a problem, specially with animal products.

As far as the templates, that's brilliant, thanks! I was going to either use the DD I have or just freehand based on the blade, but this is way better, specially considering my total lack of drawing ability!

Assuming the blade is about 6/8 inch, excellent idea!

It is indeed still 6/8".

That is going to turn out a fantastic razor for sure, but I would go with kirinite Pearl or black horn.
<snip>
But your razor came with black scales as original

Yes, I also much prefer darker materials.

 

[Frank Shaves]

If it were my razor, I would go with black horn to match the original in color. If you have not worked with or used horn, it is a wonderful and very durable material.

 

[PhilB]

If it were my razor, I would go with black horn to match the original in color. If you have not worked with or used horn, it is a wonderful and very durable material.

What is being called "black horn" here? Water buffalo horn? Some synthetic material?

 

[Ice-Man]

Water buffalo horn in black that's the best stuff to use or honey horn.

 

[Frank Shaves]

What is being called "black horn" here? Water buffalo horn? Some synthetic material?

Indian water buffalo. I bought the blank from Maggard Razors. Beautiful material to work with. You can also find water buffalo blanks from Griffith Shaving Goods, eBay and Etsy. Just make sure any blanks you buy are 6 inches long. There are lots of shorter blanks out there for knife makers.

 

[PhilB]

Indian water buffalo. I bought the blank from Maggard Razors. Beautiful material to work with. You can also find water buffalo blanks from Griffith Shaving Goods, eBay and Etsy. Just make sure any blanks you buy are 6 inches long. There are lots of shorter blanks out there for knife makers.

Duly noted. I'm hoping to find a Canadian source to avoid shipping and/or customs nightmares.

So far, I find several sources for the pin stock online in Canada (ordered), but only American sources for washers. I ordered from Micro Fasteners with part numbers found in another thread here. Brass for internal (or possibly external in some cases) and stainless in a few sizes for external. At $3 USD or so a bag of 100, there's no point in not getting several of the #0 sizes.

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait for them to figure out shipping and send me an invoice for that. If it's not too bad, it'll be a go!

I tried to order water buffalo blanks from a few American sites so far, but shipping to Canada was way more than the blanks. I think they were only 4-5" long anyway, so thanks for the advice, I'll hunt around some more with that in mind.

 

[PhilB]

I've received the pin material (stainless, from a seller on Amazon.)

Washers should hopefully be on their way from MicroFasteners (paid the shipping charge which was...reasonable, somewhat).

A Canadian forum member has some buffalo horn blanks they'll never use. They have cracks in them of unknown depth, so we worked out a fair deal. They should be on their way to me soon. If they are unusable, I'll use them for testing sanding/cutting/polishing, etc...

Things are slowly progressing forward.

 

[PhilB]

OK, scale material came in (and he threw in some old scales as well that he wouldn't use).

There are various pits and cracks, but I presume that's normal for organic material. At worse, I wreck these and/or they're unusable, and I learn how to play with the material regardless.

My first order of business is to get out the heat gun, get them good and hot, and throw them in the vice or press (very lightly!) to get them flat again.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

Boiling water or a 200 degree oven will work too. Clamp them between something smooth and leave them for a while. Hot horn will take an impression so it needs to be smooth. I saw a video on YT where a guy used angle irons. He put them in the oven with the horn.

 

[PhilB]

Boiling water or a 200 degree oven will work too. Clamp them between something smooth and leave them for a while. Hot horn will take an impression so it needs to be smooth. I saw a video on YT where a guy used angle irons. He put them in the oven with the horn.

I'm going by this, and seems that dry heat is the way to go:

Straightening horn.

Here's a Geo Wostenholm wedge I'm trying to restore. The scales are wavy (not sure if you can tell from the photo) and wondering the best way to fix. Thnaks.

www.badgerandblade.com

 

[Darth Scandalous]

Lots of good advice in that thread. Good find.

 

[PhilB]

Turns out only one was warped, and almost only on one side (so they weren't cut perfectly straight, is my guess). The side that was warped is the "bad" side, so I have a piece of 120 sandpaper on a piece of glass, and am straightening out the bottom/bad side. I'll probably do the other piece as well, just to make sure before putting them together and tracing.

If nothing else, I'll sand that side all the way up and maybe polish it, just to get an idea of the final product finish. There's lots to go, these piece are about 6mm thick, and most threads say 3mm is the magic number...and I don't have a bench/disc sander. So shaping will take a looong time. Unless I give up and buy tools! I don't have a bandsaw either.

For now, I'm doing the super-slow route on one side to see what to expect. Then I can decide in a more educated manner!

 

[PhilB]

I sanded and quickly polished the unfinished side of one of them, mainly to know how the material "works". It seems very much like mild steel or clearcoat. You get that nice "milky" water when you're just sanding enough. I wasn't anywhere near as careful as I would be for a real finished product, so there are surface microscratches, etc.

You can see it by itself in natural light, and in inside light next to the underside of the other piece that hasn't been touched, except I had just started to sand it at 120 to get it perfectly flat.

 

[H Brad Boonshaft]

So, just for information, those Dubl Duck scales are Celluloid, the Cracked Ice design. They are the most notorious for Celluloid Rot Off Gassing. It is why so few nice Dubl Ducks have survived and why they command such high prices, that and they are great shavers.

It is why they broke, and you had active orange rust on the blade. Chances are the Original Duck blade was eaten by those same scales and someone swapped out the rusted blade for the Henckels. Note the pin collar does not match the other 4 collars.

The Henckels also is a good shaving razor. Henckels never made Dubl Ducks. Anton Wingen/Othello probably made Dubl Ducks under the Dubl Duck / Bresduck and Pearlduck banner, also Beau Brummel. Wingen was a prolific cutlery manufacture who made knives and razor for a number of companies, some say even Case.

Wingen also pioneered many manufacturing techniques and the use of fancy bolster and fancy Cartouches/shields on razors and knives. Most of his knives and razor were made for export from Germany to the US under many brand names, not his.

Razor made under his mark, Wingen or Othello, of which there are few were never exported, are identical to Ducks, even bolstered scales but with different patterns. Wingen/Othello knives and razors are excellent quality, perfectly ground and finished, razors great shavers.

You do not want to save the scales or the wedge, wedges were celluloid also, they will contaminate and eat any steel stored near it. Take a good tracing with the pinholes marked and get rid of them quick.

If you suspect cell rot, remove the scales to save a blade. If the blade is badly pitted, it may never hold an edge.

You can and should save the bolsters by cutting them off the scales. Just past the end of the bolster with a pair of side cutters and placing the bolsters into a glass ashtray with Acetone, wait a minute and peel the bolsters from the scales with a pair of tweezers, be careful the bolsters are very thin brass and will bend or tear easily, if they do not want to come off wait a few minutes more and they will release. Do not forget about them and leave in the Acetone, or you will have a tray of plastic snot.

The bolsters can be cleaned and reused. It is common to find Duck with aftermarket scales because of cell rot.

Horn is an excellent scale material, cheap and very easy to work. Here is a great tutorial on making Horn scales.

How I make Horn Scales.