Working Ivory

Peter Atwood

Peter Atwood

Joined
Oct 26, 2000
Messages
2,468
Well, I finally got a chance to get back in the shop this weekend and do some experimenting. Bruce Bump was incredibly generous :) when he sent me some of the ivory scraps that he has accumulated and I went to town with it. A few pieces that he sent were outer bark and I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. It seemed really dingy but there was enough color poking through that I figured there might be something underneath it. I wasn't sure how far the color penetrated the ivory and I didn't want to go through it so I decided to hit the surface lightly with a fine scotchbrite flap wheel on my air die grinder. Boy did it work great! The more I sanded the better it got. The edges started to get a beautiful polish as well. Now I can see why ivory is such coveted stuff.

Sure does stink though! Good grief..... Luckily I have pretty good ventilation in the studio so I cranked the fans up.

Since the material is curved on the inside the challenge seems to be getting it flat enough to screw it to a knife. I discovered that using a wad of masking tape rolled backwards makes a good temporary grip for holding it up to the grinder. Using the platen got some of the pieces reasonably flat but others are fairly thin and there just won't be much left after grinding. What I decided to do with those problem pieces is to fill in the back with epoxy to make it flat. I plan to dam up the ends with some clay and just pour in some epoxy. I think it will work well and still allow me to use these thin curvy pieces. Also, it will strengthen the fragile ivory considerably.

Thanks again Bruce!
 
Peter, glad you are happy with the ivory scraps. I usually add a spacer to the back side of ivory scales once you get it flat. The spacer will add some thickness if the ivory gets too thin. The epoxy should fill that round inside void but I think it will look unsightly if the epoxy shows anywhere on the outside of the handle. You could always make smaller knives, minitures are cool.
 
Oh I see, the idea is to add another piece of thin flat ivory as a spacer to build it up a bit. Makes sense....maybe I'll try it both ways since we're not talking about much thickness. I may seal the back of the scale with superglue or something anyway just to add a littel more integrity. And yes, I was planning on making something quite small, probably Umfaan size and built in a very similar fashion with a framelock design.
 
Working with that stuff reminds me of sitting in a dentist's chair, gettin' drilled and filled! Try hand sanding it to a 1500 grit finish and see how it glows.:)
 
Peter, What I meant was to use a colored fiber spacer to build it up a bit. Thats not a bad idea though to make an ivory spacer especially if it is a different colored ivory. Sounds like a tedious method though because the spacer should be perfectly uniform in thickness. The finished knife price should reflect the extra craftsmanship.

I also like to smooth it to 1500 grit and lightly touch it to a clean buffer with scratchless pink.
 
Thanks for the tips guys. Anything else you can add would be great too. Although I take a great deal of pleasure in figuring things out for myself, it never hurts to have a little advance information!;)
 
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