Making scales, step by step

First you have to have good hard wood. I have Canary, Palisandre, Zebra, Maple and Amarante. This latter will be use this time. Amarante is a South America hard wood violet in color and extremely hard. I buy my wood in pieces of 1½"x1½" by 6".

These small pieces are difficult to cut so not to injure my hands I glue the piece to a bigger piece of soft wood. I use this bigger piece to align on my radial saw. I cut two slabs of about +1/8" thick. Two slabs will make 2 sets of scales (4 pieces).

After cutting the slabs I join them together with double face tape. This helps for cutting, drilling and sanding, helps to get symmetric pieces.

After joining them I trace the profile of the scale using the original with a medium "Sharpy" so I have an easy line to saw and sand down to correct size.

I roughly shape them on a small band saw than I go to a 1" band sander to reduce the rough cut to a more accurate shape. This is where the thick line comes handy, I just sand it down.

At this time I will drill the 1/16 holes while the scale are still flat and joined together.

After this I will separate the scale using a knife to pry them apart. Now I will flatten the inside on a flat piece of extra fine sand paper.

And now to the hand sanding. Using some 320 and 400 grit sanding paper I will really get the profile to the exact size and I will proceed to round the sides and ends. With this Amarante wood you have to sand for a long time to get any result. After getting it right I'll go to 800 and 1500 grit sand paper for the "final touch".

Now I will measure and make the wedge, in this case a flat wedge. I'll use maple wood that should contrast nicely with the violet wood. I drill the oversize wedge and glue it to one side of the scale. I'll put the scale together with 1/16 brass nail and gently sand down the wedge to the right dimension, I'll finish sanding by hand.

I only glue the wedge to one scale so it leaves the second scale free and easier to put in the pins, inside washer and blade.