Polishing horn?

[Bevel]

I'd only use water on the horn and, personally, I'd only do it with the W/D paper.
You CAN use micromesh wet but I prefer not to.
If you have W/D up to 8000 I probably wouldn't bother with the micromesh at all. It MUST be shining by 8000!

As with a blade you can't make up the heavy lifting that should have been done earlier at the higher grit stage.

 

[2bit_collie]

OK done for now.
@Bevel @Doc226 @LJS thanks for your advice. The smaller scales were done W/D up to 1000, then diamond paste. The bigger scales were done up to W/D up to 1000, then the full micro mesh progression. By 6000 the bigger scales had a better shine. 8000 improved, the 12000 seemed not to do much (the 12000 micro mesh seems to want to glaze over with use). About 1 hr total work (I started at 220 to take care of some localized scratches). The difference may not be obvious in the above photo but my desk lamp is a row of LEDs and if I look along the light rays the individual LEDs are clearly defined in one reflection and blurred together in the other reflection.

I’ll be honest - I’d still like to figure out how to use the Dremel to make this go faster, but I think the lesson, already stated by others, is to spend more time in the lower grits. Once I can get a decent shine at 1000, then maybe try polish.

For the record the small scales ended up at 9g and 2.2mm thickness so nice for a 5/8 full hollow, the larger scales are 22g and 4.5mm thickness, intended for a 6/8-7/8 wedge. Because IMO one size does not fit all.

Still need to make wedges. Planning to use some contrasting horn from a piece I have that already has varying thickness. Will likely hold off on that until I have a blade ready for rescaling.

 

[Ice-Man]

A little tip for you with horn use white bone as the wedge it looks nicer, and as for the Dremel yes you can use on the horn but use the felt pads or stitched cloth wheels first with the white rogue. But it does take longer than a buffer.

 

[2bit_collie]

Thanks @Ice-Man - that brings up another aesthetics question. For this particular pieces of horn one side of the slab (what ended up as the outside) is almost pure black. But when you look at inside faces of the scales, there are quite a few white stripes. Do people usually go for solid black? In my case the decision was driven by a comment I had seen from another poster - there was a bit of warp in the horn so I chose the inner faces so that the warp was concave to the inside and convex to the outside.

The only trace of the stripes is faintly visible on the larger scales, between the pivot hole and the tip of the scale. If you turned that scale over you would see a clear white stripe.

 

[Ice-Man]

I normally sand one side flat on both bits, then stick them together with double-sided tape then shape to suit. I do like the black as well as the streaked horn as most do like the streaked.

The horn slabs you get are pressed and the ones I have had in the past have been like you said some warp to them, you can warm them up with hot water and clamp to a flat surface until cold and that helps straighten them.

This is one I did a while back

 

[2bit_collie]

I normally sand one side flat on both bits, then stick them together with double-sided tape then shape to suit. I do like the black as well as the streaked horn as most do like the streaked.

The horn slabs you get are pressed and the ones I have had in the past have been like you said some warp to them, you can warm them up with hot water and clamp to a flat surface until cold and that helps straighten them.

This is one I did a while back


View attachment 1250038View attachment 1250039

Really nice! I tried boiling and clamping, but the warp came back when I unclamped, the parts were still a bit damp. So then I redid in the oven flattening them between a pizza stone and my granite lapping tile. The oven worked a bit better. Ironically after the parts had been taped together for a week or more to get the shaping etc done, when I untapped the warp had disapeared.