Scales in Buckeye Burl

UKRob

UKRob

Joined
Thursday March 1, 2012
Location
Lichfield
I'm starting this thread to show a finished pair of scales in burl - it's taken quite some time to find out just what is needed to work with this and, fortunately, someone on SRP gave me some good tips. I'll start with the scales and tomorrow will post some pictures of the assemled blade.




The problem with burl is that is that it has no tensile strength and tends to fracture very easily when you sand it down to the kind of size needed for scales. The solution is to use a backing - in this case veneer made from Wenge wood which as the photos show has a good linear grain. This makes all the difference, the wood was already stabilised with resin but I still felt that the veneer was necessary.

I made a wedge in the same material but with nickel silver liners - it is setting overnight so I'll fit it tomorrow and post some more pics then,
 
The wood is very light - it came to me from a brush turner in Canada - he made a brush for me and sent some scale material at the same time. Mike W then told me about a friend of his that stabilises wood properly so I sent a whole load over to him - including this buckeye. He did a great job - the piece was probably twice as heavy when it came back.

The real secret though is the veneer - it costs next to nothing but looks good as well as giving the tensile strength required for bending the scales. A good day in the workshop today. If Fizog is happy I'll post some photos of his razors as well.

Rob
 
Burl can be a beautiful material but it's so brittle even when correctly stabilized especially the thickness required for scales, I once owned a beautiful set on a Thiers Issard in a blue Burl amazing colours and made out of a solid piece of Burl, I remember reading somewhere that the failure rate when making these scales were so high in the end TI decided to no longer produce them, so Rob I think the liners are the way forward beautiful looking set all the same.

 
pugh-the-special-one said:
Burl can be a beautiful material but it's so brittle even when correctly stabilized especially the thickness required for scales, I once owned a beautiful set on a Thiers Issard in a blue Burl amazing colours and made out of a solid piece of Burl, I remember reading somewhere that the failure rate when making these scales were so high in the end TI decided to no longer produce them, so Rob I think the liners are the way forward beautiful looking set all the same.

Click to expand...

:icon_eek:
 
Here is the blade with new scales fitted.





Not as highly polished as the brush which has multi coats ot polyurethane lacquer - also the stabilising seems to have added a bit of a red hue that is not seen in the brush. Thanks for all the positive comments.
 
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