buffalo horn

I only worked with it a time or two and if I remember correctly it doesn't need sealing. To finish it, same ole same ole! Just sand it through the finer grits, at least 600 and then buff it very carefully with white rouge at a slow speed on a loose muslin wheel. If you get agrressive with it you'll eat it away real fast!!!
 
i tried to use it on a knife handle and it shrank ...does it have to be dried in an oven before you can use it?
 
Movement is definitely one of the downsides to using buffalo horn. It absorbs moisture in the air and will shrink and swell throughout its life. One way of dealing with this is to relieve the edges of the tang so that when the scales shrink the handle still presents a comfortable grip. But this leaves the appearance of a slight gap between the scales and the tang. Personally I've pretty much quit using it because of this. I work in a normally very humid environment; a knife I sent to Arizona ended up with sharp edges around the handle and the pins sticking above the scales. Unsatisfactory. I don't know whether stabilizing would make a difference, I haven't tried that yet.

Michael described the way I've finished it too.
 
Buffalo horn ( from water buffalo,not bison,BTW) is just hair that is tightly compacted. This is one of the big differences between horn and antler. It is, thus, of a fibrous nature. It can be sealed by impregnating the fibers with a resin or oil. The old trick used to be to soak it in baby oil for a week or two, and to re-soak it each year. That kept it shiny,but had its obvious problems for user knives. Thin cyanoacrylic (super glue) will work to seal it, but you need to seal the whole thing, inside and out to avoid movement. It probably could be stabilized by WSSI, but I doubt it would be worth it.
It looks good right when you buff it, but the results don't last long, and it will shrink/swell as time goes on.
Stacy
 
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