I've been quite busy but finally the new scales are fitted. Functional rather than beautiful. Things didn't quite go as planned.
A quick run-through of the process:
* Cut rectangles out of a block of wood (walnut) with a tenon saw.
* Cut out the rough shape of the scales with a coping saw.
* Stick the two pieces together with double-sided tape. Now you can sand them down to the final shape and they'll be perfectly equal. P80, P120, P240 sandpaper.
* I used acrylic artists' paint to try to create a gradient effect. This can be applied as a solid colour or as dilute washes. If an area is too dark after applying a black wash, you can also sand the wood down a little bit to "dilute" it.
When you apply washes the grain will rise so you need to knock that down gently with a fine-grain sandpaper.
* Tru-oil finish. You can get a glassy smooth finish by applying lots of thin layers but my old bottle of tru-oil had turned to a gel the consistency of snot. I just rubbed on a couple of thick layers and smoothed it out as best I could manage with a finger.
I think walnut grain can be filled by wet-sanding with tru-oil. But not with my tru-snot. If I was doing this as a business I'd be bankrupt but the end result is good enough for me even if it isn't perfect.
* Peening was much easier than I thought it would be. Except for the holes. "I don't need a drill press!" I said. "I can do it by eye!" I said.
Nope. I really messed this up (as you can see from the above photo). Nevertheless, the blade does seem to swing round through 270 degrees and closes centered so I got away with it.
But the pin-bashing part was quite easy. My peening kit:
A spoon makes an excellent ball hammer
The axe was used as an anvil. A solid lump of metal means the hammer-blows aren't cushioned so all the force goes into the head of the pin.
Flush-nosed nippers are handy to trim the pin to the perfect length (about 1mm?). Too much would take forever to hammer down.
Next step: honing. All I've done to the blade so far is rub out any corrosion marks and clean out the jimps. It could be polished up to a mirror finish. If I was more patient. When I get a couple of hours to spare I'll probably just want to get it honed & try it out.
Note that the smart thing to do is hone last. It's much easier and safer doing all the other tasks with a blunt blade. In fact, if I was fitting new scales to a shave-ready razor, I'd be tempted to deliberately blunt the edge.