Sources for natural scale materials: Bone, Horn, Mammoth Ivory, etc?

**SliceOfLife** · 05-22-2010, 11:15 PM

I had found a very good site for these before and could have sworn I bookmarked it, but I've lost it. So if you have a good source, please post it. Thanks a bunch.

**azmark** · 05-22-2010, 11:22 PM

Originally Posted by SliceOfLife

I had found a very good site for these before and could have sworn I bookmarked it, but I've lost it. So if you have a good source, please post it. Thanks a bunch.

I've purchased from Dicks.biz in the past. They are great to deal with.

**wdwrx** · 05-25-2010, 06:45 AM

Ian, try Masecraft. I've yet to purchase anything from them, but they seem to have a pretty good selection of interesting scale materials.

**SliceOfLife** · 05-25-2010, 05:44 PM

That's the one, thank you both.

**thirdeye** · 05-27-2010, 03:26 AM

Dicks is ok but most of their stock is to short for scales. I find Masecraft to be a much better source as their stock is longer and any plates are matched right in house before shipping.

My shop is only 9 minutes away so if you guys want, I would be more than glad to stop in and hand select your material.
Hell it's like my third home, I walk in, they hand me a cup of coffee and I'm off on my own rummaging around their stock piles to pick out the best of the best in stock.

**professorchaos** · 05-27-2010, 05:14 AM

Originally Posted by azmark

I've purchased from Dicks.biz in the past. They are great to deal with.

That is good to hear. They have some cool natural materials.

**professorchaos** · 05-27-2010, 05:17 AM

Originally Posted by thirdeye

Dicks is ok but most of their stock is to short for scales. I find Masecraft to be a much better source as their stock is longer and any plates are matched right in house before shipping.

My shop is only 9 minutes away so if you guys want, I would be more than glad to stop in and hand select your material.
Hell it's like my third home, I walk in, they hand me a cup of coffee and I'm off on my own rummaging around their stock piles to pick out the best of the best in stock.

That is very generous of you; they have some cool stuff.

**SliceOfLife** · 05-27-2010, 08:00 PM

Very cool. I may take you up on that some day, especially since I don't know what to look for in materials myself.

My bits from theknifeshop arrived. (Ordered from them after an attempt to order from Dicks failed due to some checkout error). I managed to bandsaw off two slabs of buffalo horn from my 6x1/2 slab (they were out of the larger slab :( ) and Applied the surface I'm putting on it. Next one I'll do, I'm going to cut thicker and just use the horn itself as a scale (this was my test run to see how it will work as a spine for the scales. I've already decided it's not worth the effort, so I'll likely look for sheet brass or something like that for my more delicate material scales). Tomorrow the adhesive will be set and I'll start shaping them to form a scale-like shape (hopefully). Definitely disappointed that I had to get the 1/2" thick horn. The bigger was 7/8", which would be so much better for some of the Sheffields I have needing scales. Hopefully they will restock soon. Or maybe Masecraft has them. I'll check when I finish off this 6x1/2 slab.

On a sidenote... my Bandsaw manual says that a properly torqued blade should make "a note" when plucked. It doesn't say what note. Any one know what note a 3/8" blade should make?