thinking outside the horn,,,,?????

[omark]

the other day i was thinking about jamming a cone into a soft horn. it seems like the physics of this act could lead to some unnecessary splits. so i took a piece of 1/2" ply wood and scribed a circle of the approximate size of the horn base. then i tilted my bandsaw table to 10 degrees and cut into the edge of the circle, then cut the circle out. in my mind, this allows for a little bit of spring tension when the horn is inserted and due to the outside tension, it shouldnt crack horns. tried it a couple of times and seems to work. but i am very new at boiling and rounding horns. please let me know if anyone else has thought of / used this idea and what you think of it.    mark

[Randy Hedden]

I don't see the difference between using a forming cone and using the 1/2" thick piece of plywood. If a horn is going to split it usually starts to split at the butt end. In that case the 1/2" long former can split the horn as easily as using a longer forming cone. I believe, in many cases, you might find that using a 1/2" former might result in the last half inch of the butt end of the horn bulging out from the natural profile of the rest of the horn.

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[omark]

randy, meant to put the board on the horn, around it, which would cause a compression of the fibres instead of a cone inside that would expand it.

[Randy Hedden]

I guess I didn't understand exactly what you were doing with the 1/2" plywood. When rounding a horn, you should not be forcing the cone in to such an extent that you are stretching the horn material. Trying to actually stretch the horn will result in a split horn for sure. I guess your idea might work, but in all the horns I have boiled and rounded with a cone I have only had one split. I boil my horns for rounding in hot oil and you can not leave them in for more than 12-15 seconds. I had a horn in the hot oil and my wife came up and asked me something and I left the horn in the oil to long and it turned to jelly and split when I put a shaping cone in it. This is the only time I have had a horn split while rounding the butt end. Nothing slicker than using hot oil and a rounding cone.

Maybe 30-35 years ago I watched a TV program on National Geographic. I watched a guy take a curly, twisty, rams horn and by using hot oil he straightened the horn a section at a time until he had a straight rams horn for making a shofar. Before watching that TV program I used boiling water  to shape my horns and after watching that program I have used hot oil ever since.

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[omark]

what kind of oil do you use, randy?         mark

[Randy Hedden]

what kind of oil do you use, randy?         mark

Mark,

I use the cheapest vegetable oil that I can buy. I buy it in gallon plastic jugs and pour it back into the jug when I am done with it and it has cooled down. A gallon will do a lot of horns even though there is some minimal loss of oil each time you use it. I heat it outside in a 3 pound coffee can on a single burner  Coleman stove.

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[omark]

thanks randy

[Jerry V Lape]

Get a cheap deep fat fryer at Wal Mart to heat the oil.  The potential for a fire is reduced compared to the Coleman and you can get somewhat better temperature control. 

[Randy Hedden]

Get a cheap deep fat fryer at Wal Mart to heat the oil.  The potential for a fire is reduced compared to the Coleman and you can get somewhat better temperature control. 

Jerry,

When I heat my oil it is in a 3 pound coffee can. The can is only about 1/3 full so there is little if any chance of it catching on fire. Using heated oil for rounding horns requires kind of strict control of the temperature of the oil. I heat my oil to 340-350 degrees and use a candy thermometer to check the temperature. With a deep fryer I wouldn't really know what the temperature was relying on the deep fryers thermostat settings so I would have to use a candy thermometer anyhow. You can't get any better heat control than when using a candy thermometer.

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[Randy Hedden]

Mark,

Did you get a chance to try rounding a horn with an external rounding form? If so, how did it work for you?

Randy Hedden

www.harddogrifles.com

[omark]

yes, randy, i did and it seems to have worked fine. i know that both methods work, just thought from the outside there may be less chance of it cracking but maybe there isnt that much pressure needed. i did use your idea of the hot oil and it worked much better than the water i had used. in a previous post i had talked about a horn cracking in water. i think maybe it was because the horn had laid on the pan bottom while being heated. i will update that post soon. thanks again, mark