Adhesive for Horn Scales?

[WittyAg]

So I acquired an antique wedge recently that had some old school horn scales on it that have seen better days. There is a crack near one of the pins that I would like to mend if I can, but I was curious what adhesive is recommended? I wasn't sure if I should go with super glue, epoxy, or something else, or just try to rescale it altogether.

[mainaman]

People usually use epoxy

[DogHair]

I fixed a crack near the pivot pin last night with super glue. After cleaning and polishing the repair is not noticeable but I'll have to see how it holds. I think it depends on whether you need filler or not. If you need to fill a gap then epoxy is probably the way to go.

[Ray-man]

Cracks around the pivot pin are most likely caused by a drying of the horn itself and flexing of the blade. You can stop the drying by soaking the horn in something like Neets Foot Oil, but not until you have repaired the crack itself.

In order to stabalize the crack, I would remove both pins and put some type of backing material on the inside of the scales mounted with a long setting epoxy like T-88 or at least an 8 hour set epoxy. This will allow the flexing of the blade to occure without negative results, thus eliminating the possibility of more cracks developing.

Ray