antler for scraping......

[hhughh]

I'm not often this lucky, but sometimes things happen. All of the deer "horns" around my house have entirely too much sentimental value to turn into scrapers. But, a few days ago a squirrel--I'm assuming--dropped a piece of forked antler near the edge of my yard. The horn is old, and it's the wrong time of year for a shed to be out and about, so I don't know how it happened, but anyway, I have about a six inch piece of curved and forked antler. How do I go about turning it into a scraper?

Thanks,

Hugh

 

[wvmtnman]

While I am no expert at making scrapers, I believe that the deer antler would best be used as a burnisher. To do this, grind the surface smooth and polish. For my burnisher, I made a flat spot about 1 1/4 inch long and 1/2 inch wide. I also made a pointed burnisher so that I can get into the areas around the carving. I will try to take a picture later this evening and post.
Brian

 

[rich pierce]

Not sure whether you mean "scraper" or "burnisher". If you mean to use it to smooth the grain of stockwood, you'll want to polish it smoother than the finish you hope to get on the stock and keep it away from grit or dirt. All "nubs" etc must be removed in the "working area" of the antler, then polish well. The good thing about antlers is they have natural curvature that allows them to be used on convex and concave parts of a stock.

I do not burnish until after sealing a stock as burnishing closes the pores and it can become impossible to properly stain or even seal a stock when burnished.

 

[GobblerKnob]

In my opinion, I don't think an antler will make a good scraper. Glass will work as a scraper, but not on a gun stock. You are at the mercy of the irregularities of the broken surface and those irregularities will transfer to the finished surface. You need steel. Like the others, I think antler makes a much better tool to burnish with. Rick