Zebrawood scales

[dakotaev]

Hey all,

The blade is just a place holder at the moment. Just got back from a trip to Vancouver and visited Lee Valley for some nice wood pen blanks. Decided they'll make small but nice scales. First attempt with Zebrawood. This particular sample has a pretty random grain.

The wood is finished with Orangewax.

 

[SteveM]

Nice! That grain is very interesting and irregular for Zebrawood.

 

[honed]

Beautiful wood & nicely finished!

 

[BuddyRockefella]

looks good.

 

[steelhead]

The wood looks great!

 

[Luc]

Nice pathern!

 

[rambus007]

This wood looks almost like bocote. Looks good.

 

[DFrancis]

nice colour on the wood also.

 

[dakotaev]

This wood looks almost like bocote. Looks good.

You're absolutely right, a few days after this post, I realized that who I had pick these up for me mixed a few of the names up.

This is in fact Bocote.

 

[rambus007]

When I peen I notice that my collars get scratched up a bit. How do you prevent your collars from getting scratched? Do you use a smooth hammer head with a hole for your base or do you use wood?

 

[superbleu]

You need to use a solid metal base to peen against. You should sand and polish the peen on the hammer as smooth as possible. After you are done peening you can use some metal polish to clean up the pins too.

 

[grump]

Evan,

Looks very good.

What scales were on the blade prior to the rescale?

Was the wedge reused or made by you? It looks good with the wood.

 

[dakotaev]

When I peen I notice that my collars get scratched up a bit. How do you prevent your collars from getting scratched? Do you use a smooth hammer head with a hole for your base or do you use wood?

I have a vice which also doubles as a small anvil I use to peen. I just progressively clean up each side with lighter and lighter, hits with the ball peen hammer, flipping several times. Eventually it just evens out and looks nice, then clean it up with some metal polish and a rag.

 

[dakotaev]

Evan,

Looks very good.

What scales were on the blade prior to the rescale?

Was the wedge reused or made by you? It looks good with the wood.

Thanks,

It had a pair of broken plastic scales. The wedge was made by myself. I purchased a thin plate of brass at the local hobby store. Cut the approximate square size I needed for the wedge using a haxsaw or dremmel. At that point I drilled the hole, peened it to the unfinished scales and then used the belt sander even it out flush with the wood. I do this just before all of the final hand sanding is complete. I do the final sanding with the wedge in so that the cut and sanding marks get smoothed out while I'm finishing the wood surface. You can't sand too much at this point because the wood will sand away much faster than the metal.