Rough pin on Latama

[Squire80]

One of the pin heads on the backside of a Latama is rough enough to feel simply when holding the knife. I have very small files with smooth edges and was able to smooth the edges of the pin head. I have polished the area with a polishing emery board but can't quite get back to the original high polish.
What is used or how do I repolish to match how it came? It is horn. I do not have a buffing wheel, just a dremal and a hand drill.


Where do I go from here? John

[Billyfish]

Dremels have buffing wheel accessories, felt, cloth; you name it. buy some rouge and tripoli, mask off the surrounding horn and go to it. Take your time and don't bear down too hard. Easy does it.

[Squire80]

That is pretty much what I was going to try, but I was thinking, be easy and gentle because dead slow on a Dremel is still fast enough to make something real hot real fast and I do not want to overdo it. What is Tripoli ? I've not heard of that -

[Billyfish]

Rouge and Tripoli are both polishing compounds. I used to work with silver way back in the day. Tripoli is a bit coarser. Rouge is the compound used for fine polishing which is, I think the one you will need; those pins are pretty soft being brass or bronze. If you have a good hardware store at hand I believe Dremel sells very small combination packs of the stuff.

You are referring to polishing the pin rather than the horn am I right?
If you were referring to the horn, then I withdraw the previous advice and defer to Bill.

[Bill DeShivs]

Just the pin head can be polished with your Dremel and a felt wheel with rouge.. You can also use a polish like Simichrome on a cloth without worrying about the horn.

[Squire80]

I went to ACE and got a couple new polishing wheels and some compound and the old cloth wheel already on the Dremel was still in good shape, so with just a small amount of the compound, the back scale is already back to very near the gloss of the front. In other words, it worked like a charm. I may go over it one more time, but it is real close to finished. The buffing polished the pin head as well so it's looking good--

I may try the Simichrome and see if that may be the final step -- thanks guys, I appreciate the suggestions -- John