Cleaning inside a horn

[Scota4570]

How do I do it?   There are ridges.  Scraping around the bend seems impossible.  Fill it with rocks and shake the heck out of it?  This is an old raw horn with no work at all before me.  The junk sticking to the inside prevents light from passing through.  I'd like the inside to be clean. 

Thanks,
Scot

[Tim Crosby]

 Not quite sure what your talking about, pieces of the core or ridges in the horn itself. I wouldn't worry about ridges in the horn, just rasp the end so that you can get a good fit with the plug and work the outside like you would any horn. Got a Pic?

  Tim C.

[rich pierce]

+1 on Tim’s advice. Clamp it tight and use a half round coarse file to smooth out the inner ridges just enough to fit the plug.

[Marcruger]

If there is still core material inside, perhaps boiling it OUTSIDE would be a good idea. 

[Scota4570]

The material on the inside I want out is the white residue.  I have brushed it with a stainless steel brush and steel wool.   I'd like to thin the walls until it is translucent. The residue blocks the light as shown.  This is an old dry very crusty horn with no work before I got it.   It had a very thick layer of  rough hair-finger nail like layers that  I used a belt sander and rasp to remove.  I have cut the weight about in half since I started.  It is still quite thick.  I have never worked on a horn in the natural state, this is new to me.  The others were started before I got them, cleaned scraped and polished. 

[Tim Crosby]

 Hard to tell but from what I see I do not think that horn has powder horn potential. The body is thick but that can be scraped thin from the outside, the cavity itself looks small, may be the pic. Those Two light  U shaped spots look like the horn is either cracked or is delaminating.
 If it will work just scrape/rasp/file/sand the outside until it is of a uniform thickness, keeping the horn shape, as thick all around as the thinnest spot. Then fit a plug. First thing I would do is cut the tip and drill the hole. Have you marked the end of the cavity on the horn?

  Tim 

[Scota4570]

Yep, that horn was a bust.  There were cracks hidden in the the spout end. 

[Greg Pennell]

Scott, for what it’s worth, I have 5 or 6 similar horns down in the shop that I don’t know what, if ever, they’ll get used for. I bought them on eBay, and I don’t know what sort of cattle they came from, but they are extremely thick, and have large ridges in the interior like yours.  I’m thinking of making a hunting horn from at least one of them, it’s certainly large enough to have a good sound (I think), but I don’t know if any will make a decent powder horn. They might all get cut up for knife handles, or for turning tips from. At any rate, I’ll pick my horns out in person, at shows, from now on.

Greg

[Mike from OK]

It might be somewhat salvageable... Perhaps cut it up into rings to use on banded horns.

Mike

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

That horn is thick enough in it's thickest part, to make nice knife scales, certainly nice buttons.  For a powder horn, not suitable.

[WadePatton]

Trying to fix up a cheapo horn that was made to hang on a wall and look like a powder horn, I found such a crack-and it just kept getting bigger.  The hollow was fine, but the horn will have to be repurposed.  I'll try again with a pre-polished, but un-worked horn.