Question about horn making

[Jesse168]

When I was a youngster I was told that some horn makers scraped their horns so thin that they could see through the horn.  This was suppose to
have been so they could see how much powder was in the horn.  Is there any trueth to this? 
Also when working a horn how do you repair a horn when you dig too deep and make a hole in the side of a horn?
One last question.  Looking at most of the posts here about making rings for horns they are attached by pins.  Weren't any of the originals attached by glue(melted horn) instead of pins? 

Just Curious  Jesse

[skillman]

Jesse
In answer
#1   Yes
#2   No satisfactory repair  Don't.  There are several ways to cover the mistakes.
#3   I believe that some were applied hot. Probably why some bands are missing.
Steve

[Jesse168]

Thanks for the reply Steve.

[MikeCooper]

I once drilled through the side of a horn and repaired it with an oval brass plate... now if only I could engrave!   
Hide glue tends to dissolve when it gets wet.   But probably gettin rained on wouldn't affect it too much so you could probably use it on bands.    I made the mistake once of using hide glue on the wood base plug then stained the horn in rit dye.   the hot water melted all the glue out.