Smoothing Horn

[Tohatchi NM]

An idea struck last night - not sure if it's original or not.

Has anyone tried a nail file for smoothing out horn? I've seen some pretty specialized polishing/smoothing boards - much finer than the average emery board. I suspect that this might polish up horn fairly nicely.

I have a few nicks to smooth out on the karda of the recently arrived BAS. I'll drop by Wally World this weekend, see how it works, and report back.

 

[firkin]

Well, let us know if you find anything useful in the manicure dept. Gotta admit I don't look there too often. I suspect that most products are expertly packaged and marketed overpriced bits of sandpaper or cheap files, but what do I know?

I've found that the horn takes well to reshaping with a single cut file, and carborundum paper of various grades, used with and without sanding blocks, finishes well. I slather the handle up with a bit of VO5 hair ointment to wet sand with the finer grades. Hand-buffing with a folded strip of heavy paper bag or the backside of emory paper gives a nice polish--some buffing or honing compound speeds things up, but isn't really needed if a proper range of grits has been used. For final polish, I just wrap the blade in a towel, and sit on it, like shown in one of Uncle's posts. Of course the blade the kami/assistant was working in the photo wasn't wrapped, but I'm a chicken, especially when sharp objects are near parts of me that I can't see.

 

[Bill Martino]

Whatever works.