Glued on wedge

[2bit_collie]

So I am working to swap blades for a set of scales. Two big old French blades that won’t fit in a normal set of scales (distance from pivot hole to tang is too long). One blade came with no scales. The other has scales, but the blade is hitting the wedge. That blade is a touch longer, so the first blade will fit in those scales quite nicely. After some work I got the pins out today. However I have discovered that the wedge is glued to one of the scales (only 1, not the other). Any thoughts how to get it off? Worst case I can reuse but the blade I will be putting in is fatter at the spine, so it won’t be able to close very well with the existing wedge. Grinding it off is not realistic due to lack of a belt sander or similar device and I don’t think I am handy enough with a wood chisel.

BTW I honestly don’t know if I put the little secondary holes at the pivot or not. Drilling it out was pretty tricky so it could have been me. But these aren’t pro quality scales either. They are black horn, but the inner surfaces were not sanded smooth at all. But nice material, so I think I can make them look nice with less work than making new scales from scratch. And big enough washers will hide the extra holes at the pivot!

 

[stone and strop]

No sander? Use a file.
I would try to use a knife to get it off first. Exacto with the scale laying flat.

 

[LJS]

Diamond file could shave it down. Looking at it, unless you redrill the scales you may not be able to use a much smaller one anyway. Not much between the hole and end of the wedge as it sits.

 

[romsitsa]

Try to gently heat it, if it’s animal glue, it should come loose. If it’s CA, debonder or acetone will work. Or if you don’t need the wedge use an xacto blade and pry it off.

 

[global_dev]

Interesting razor, one of my favorite profiles w/ tang but where is the tail?

is this one of those butterfly razors?

 

[2bit_collie]

No tail, I think these were common from French razor companies. There is a thumb notch and jimps top and bottom on the tang, so my guess is that the lack of a tail didn’t make it that much harder to hold.

 

[2bit_collie]

Diamond file could shave it down. Looking at it, unless you redrill the scales you may not be able to use a much smaller one anyway. Not much between the hole and end of the wedge as it sits.

Actually my goal is to put in a thicker wedge. The blade going in has a thicker spine.

 

[2bit_collie]

Hi All,
It turns out that my motorized hand sander only took about 5 minutes (with 60 grit paper) to make the old wedge vanish. Honestly I just need to man up sometimes and accept that some things will take more than a minute to accomplish. Will post final pix under “What’s on your bench” thread.