Making my first set of book matched scales

tryppyr

tryppyr

Joined
Feb 5, 2010
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A few weeks ago I bought a piece of musk ox horn from Miles (before he stopped selling animal products) and thought for sure I'd make some sort of pistol grip handle for a hidden tang knife. Here's what the piece originally looked like.

MuskOx01s.JPG


MuskOx02s.JPG


MuskOx03s.JPG


MuskOx04s.JPG


As you can see, it's a bit of an oddball piece. Not exactly flat on one side, and the white part in the center is unevenly distributed from one side to the other. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that I had no real option but to split this into book matched scales.

Only problem is I've never done that before and didn't have the equipment to do it properly.

Then an idea struck me... all I really needed was a tall fence on my band saw. Now mind you, I have a stock HF portable band saw the the stock tiny "table". But I also had a lot of old steel brackets bent at 90 degrees, and I figured one of those would make an excellent tall fence. So I clamped it into place, as shown here.

MuskOx05s.JPG


I then laid the flat side against the fence and cut the first scale. Being well pleased with the result, I then laid the fresh cut edge of the remaining piece against the fence and cut off the excess. The result is two book matched scales of equal thickness (3/8 inch), and one piece of excess material of variable thickness.

MuskOx08s.JPG


Now, of course, the problem is making a knife that could use these scales. Since I tend to do hidden tang, it's going to force me to think outside my usual boundaries.
 
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One mistake to avoid in cutting bookmatched sets of any material is not marking them when you cut them. Those two should have the down side (in the photo) marked "IN" or "inside" with a sticky label or a marker. The two surfaces exposed by the cut are the new "bookmatched" outside surfaces, and the old outside is now the inside. All too often the person assembles the scales in the order that they were cut, and does not "flip them to get the bookmatch.

If cutting many sets from a board or other material, label them in pairs as you cut them with - "inside A" ,"inside B", "inside C", etc., as each set will have a slightly different pattern. Don't mark the outside, or near the edges, as the ink might stain the material and still show after sanding. On the center of the inside it won't be seen, unless the material is translucent. In those types material, like ivory and horn, use a pencil or a sticky label to mark the inside.

Bookmatching makes closely matching "left" and "right" patterns on the sides.
 
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