Working with Bone

[Baldy]

How cautious do I need to be when working with bone? Before I start I'm going to pick up a decent respirator, but what about the work area itself.
My workbench is out the back of my house and when I'm not working there my wife and kids use the area. I normally vacumme the bench and sweep the floor but is that enough when dealing with bone.
Thanks
Grant

[Telecaster52]

enjoy the smell! \
It really depends on the level of work your doing... sanding/carving no big deal. Powertools, otoh you want goggles and mask, probably rubber gloves to keep the odor off your skin

[lax1mxr]

Mask, goggles, gloves and long sleeves.....and yes enjoy the smell!

[kimfella]

I've just unpinned a broken blade from a pair of bone scales and want to reuse the scales. One of them (the front one of course) has a little crack near the pivot. I think it is still quite sturdy, but it set me to wondering: should I stabilize the bone scales as if they were spalted or burl wood? Will wood stabilizer work with bone?

[Baldy]

kimfella,
I restored this wedge a while back. The scales had a nasty crack through the wedge pin hole and they were extremely thin. I made a 1.5mm clear acrylic liner and epoxied the scales to it. This was before i was aware that bone dust was very hazardous.
Its unusual but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

[Baldy]

Sorry, forgot the pic.
Grant.

[kimfella]

Very nice Baldy. I have a 1' sq. sheet of brass (that I picked up for some other project) that I've considered using as backing for scales. I got a lot of 6 razors on eBay, primarily for one with a broken/chipped blade that had faux tortoise shell scales. When it arrived the FT was not nearly as nice as the picture (fortunately 2 carved Faux Ivory ones were MUCH nicer than the pictures showed them). I'm thinking I may polish up the brass to a true mirror shine and use them to back the FT scales. I'll play with that a bit, but right now I think that may tone them up enough to salvage them.

Backing the bone scales won't really help stabilize that crack, as if it opens up it is likely to spall a piece off the surface rather than break right through. Anyway the current bone scales are more of a thought generator. I'm wondering if bone scales in general, and burl wood, and open grain wood are all amenable to using stabilizing resins on them.

The carved Faux Ivory are really probably PRESSED or molded celluloid. Opens up some more ideas: e.g. pressed designs in wood scales, or Micarta/Linen-resin scales.

[lax1mxr]

CA works extremely well. I use it with bone and spalted wood. works well also with stabilizing cracks in bone, horn and ivory.

[kimfella]

Thank you.