Making of a 7 day set of scales (pic heavy)

[Undream]

I thought a few of you would be interested to see how I made 7 identical (well, close anyway..) sets of scales.

first step was to draw my scale shape on paper, and cut it out, and then outline the paper onto my material.

Next up, I cut them out using my band saw:



After I rough cut them, they looked like this:



Next step was to double-sided tape them all together.



This allowed me to get a matching profile on all 7 sets.



After that, I seperated them out in pairs.



And then proceeded to thin them out to around .22" for both scales. (This is before any shaping is done, so, the end product was closer to .10" each)



After that, I drilled the holes!



Then I proceeded to shape the scales. Initially I used an 80 grit belt, and eventually moved all the way up to 400, then I went to hand sanding them. Here they are after 600 grit paper.



I made some black horn wedges, and separated out each set of scales, ensuring to mark which went with which so as to ensure perfect matches (since there are likely minute differences).



After that, I pinned the wedge ends, and sanded down the excess horn. then I gave everything a buff!



and thats it!

[Krona Kruiser]

That's amazing...Simple enough but not easy! That's some nice work.

[GreekGuy]

I feel like I've seen that 7 day LG set before around here

Beautiful work, and thanks for the photos!

[duokun]

gorgeous work! thanks for sharing!

[tomjr]

very nicely done! i like it.

[Sando]

You make it look so easy and I know it ain't. What's that material? I like.

...Ray

[Earcutter]

Nice job!

[Doc226]

That is awesome.

[paco664]

very very nice... thank you for showing how its done...

[Prof. Moriarty]

Wow, just wow. Thanks for showing the steps you took to get such a fantastic result.

[superbleu]

I feel like I've seen that 7 day LG set before around here

Beautiful work, and thanks for the photos!

Yeah, those belong to Jeremy. Lucky dog!!!

Great work Brad, thanks for sharing.

[Khay]

Thanks for taking the time to post the several steps, really nice work on those scales.

[global_dev]

perfect, thanks for the how to!

[ladykate]

Very nice and so very hard to do well - even though you made it look easy. Sweet... and thanks!

[grump]

Thanks for posting, Brad. I never would have guessed the all taped together shaping of the profile.

[global_dev]

is micarta a particularly "soft" material to work with?

[goatee]

nice job as always brad

[grump]

is micarta a particularly "soft" material to work with?

Paper micarta is very easy to work, yet it is very durable. I have not used cloth or linen micarta but I would think it to be similar.

[brother cavefish]

that is alot of work, it almost not worth selling, unless it high, what is that 30 hours of work

[Undream]

that is alot of work, it almost not worth selling, unless it high, what is that 30 hours of work

It was about 18 hours.. :)