softening horn....?

[Bigmon]

looking for info on how to heat (in oil??)
horns and pc of horn for making flat horns and flat pieces for inlaying???
Any help is appreciated?
Thanks

[Gun Butcher]

Bigmon, I use a large Fry daddy that I bought at Goodwill for $10 bucks. You will need a candy thermometer if the fry daddy doesn't have a dial on it and it might be a good idea to have one in any case just to check your settings.
Oil should be heated to 325- 350 degrees. Don't forget to have a way to remove your horn when it gets hot enough. I then put the horn in for 10 to 20 seconds and then out for a few seconds. I may do this 2 to 4 times until I start getting bubbles off the horn. According to the thickness this process will be a little shorter or longer.
Don't leave the horn in to long or it will burn ( a deep orange color ) which makes it pretty much useless.
Have your press or a large vise ready with your flat boards and or a mandrel to go inside the flat horn. if you don't use a mandrel the horn will try to collapse.
I hope you got something useful out of this very over simplified explanation and if you look around in the tutorials you will probably find a much better one with pictures.

Ron

[Bigmon]

Thanks Ron,  I am gonna give this a try soon.
I hope.
Take care

[Horner75]

What Ron said and be sure to wear a heavy pair of gloves and eye protection.....be careful!

[Tim Crosby]

 Lard is probably HC but I have never used it. All of the horns I do are boiled in water until soft, sometimes an hour plus, it has worked for 50+ years. Thin and shape before boiling. Even horns that are to be flattened are just boiled.
 I have thought about trying Lard but H20 work just fine for me. Besides, I do a lot of not only turnings for horns but furniture making and I do not like the idea of having any kind of oil in the shop.
 I will say that I think I am one of a very few who use water. What ever works for you.

   Tim C.

[Gun Butcher]

Tim, like you I only used water then I found out how much faster it is to use oil. Having a somewhat limited amount of shop time I started using it. It is kinda messy but I have really gotten use to it.

Ron

[bigsmoke]

Twenty some years ago, I purchased Earl Cureton's powder horn business.  He had used boiling water to soften horns from the beginning of his horn working time, which would have been about 30 years.  I continued with that method for maybe 8 or 10 years after I bought the business.
But, I really didn't care for doing things like that.  It sure steamed up the horn shop and I wasn't really happy about the potential damage to the insulation in the shop.  However, it did help warm the shop up on a cold morning.
I had heard of using hot oil or lard to soften the horns, but for some reason I did not care for that thought.  I was considering asking the manager of the local McDonalds if it would be all right if I came down at night and heated up some horns, but decided he probably would not go for the idea.
Then I thought about using a commercial heat gun to soften the horn.  That worked just fine for rounding, for flattening, and for pressing pieces of horn.
Bottom line, I do not know how many thousand powder horns I made after switching over to the heat gun, but it was several.  To this day, whenever I make a powder horn, after I drill the tip, the heat gun comes out.  What I do is insert the nozzle into the base of the horn, and at high heat, I run the nozzle around the horn wall for 45 seconds to a minute.  Then insert the baseplug into the horn and seat it with a dead blow hammer.  Easy peasy, and you don't have to wait for the water or oil to warm up.

[J Henry]

http://thehornersbench.proboards.com   give this a look see,,good crew   Read the TUTORIALS good starting point.  Lot of the crew from over there are on here,,, fact is everyone that responded on this site is there..go figure!!!

[Bigmon]

J Henry,
I tried viwing your link, but it would not allow me to get on?
Thanks

[PIKELAKE]

I have tried all the ways to soften horns; boiling water, hot oil, and heat guns. Years ago, I heated a horn in a commercial restaurant steamer. After a few minutes,  the horn came out unbelievably soft. It was perfect. I don't have that connection anymore but I did have an epiphany. How about a pressure cooker? If I had one I sure would give it a try.  Am I dreaming?   JZ

[Dennis Daigger]

I have tried all the ways to soften horns; boiling water, hot oil, and heat guns. Years ago, I heated a horn in a commercial restaurant steamer. After a few minutes,  the horn came out unbelievably soft. It was perfect. I don't have that connection anymore but I did have an epiphany. How about a pressure cooker? If I had one I sure would give it a try.  Am I dreaming?   JZ

I used a pressure cooker to flatten some very thick Dall sheep horn and it worked fine. 15 psi is supposed to get you to 250 degrees which is a good boost above 212. I don’t have a pressure cooker big enough for a cow horn so haven’t tried that but that temp gets you a fair way to the oil temp for those that would rather stay with water.
Dennis

[PIKELAKE]

Vindication!  Thank you Mr. Daigger. I am going to search for a pressure cooker and give it a whirl.   JZ

[Tim Crosby]

 Finding a large one that horns will fit in one may not only be a problem. If you are only going to do a few it may not be cost effective.
 If some people realized how much time is put into making a horn taking an hour or so to boil one is a fraction of the time.

   Tim C.

[BOB HILL]

Tim, most people have no idea how much time and energy go into this type work.
Bob

[bigsmoke]

Finding a large that horns will fit in one may not only be a problem. If you are only going to do a few it may not be cost effective.
 If some people realized how much time is put into making a horn taking an hour or so to boil one is a fraction of the time.

   Tim C.

Tim,
And here is another difference between those who are doing this as a hobby (anywhere from a first and only to someone who makes horns to sell and doesn't mind taking all day or more to do it) and those who do it as a profession.  No insult intended to hobbyists or the pros.
Personally, if I were to take more than an hour in total to make a horn from beginning to end, I would just not be able to keep up with my orders.  Granted, I do not do all the fancy stuff like engrailing and banded horns, etc. and there is a reason.  I have tried some of that stuff and I wind up with too much time invested in them.  And I do not do scraping or filing of the surface, or boiling in any liquid.  I use a 2x72" belt sander and a heat gun instead.  Most horns I can soften enough for my purposes in under a minute and I can probably sand the entire horn including tapering the nose in under a minute as well.  That would be for the first sand with a 50 grit belt.  The second sanding would happen in about the same time.  The final sanding with a 400 grit belt would also take about a minute.
The problem with the way I make a powder horn is it is equipment heavy.  Floor mounted drill press, floor mounted band saw, 12" disc sander, Jet wood lathe with a 1 hp motor, 72" belt sander, 16 brush flapper sander, a good router with carbide bits, and a bench mounted motor with a polishing buff on it.  And a work bench sized wall full of hand tools as well. And don't forget, there is a bit of dust control involved in this also.  But, each of those pieces of equipment has allowed me to reduce the total amount of time needed to produce a nice powder horn.
John (Bigsmoke)

[Jeff Murray]

I guess the process really depends on your goal.  I have made horns on and off for years and try to end up with a result that I would enjoy having attached to my shooting bag.  Carving the tip or planning a design for scrimshawing a horn does not lend itself to high speed techniques.  Depending on the level of detail, the scrimshaw work can take hours.  The 50 grit belt sounds like a good idea for raw buffalo horns.   Guess it is good to be retired so I don't have to make a living at it.

[bigsmoke]

Yessir, the 50 grit works well on the buff horns.  Actually, I bought all my cow horns as polished items.  So much easier to import them that way.  But I always sanded the entire horn to a) taper the nose and b) to get the base pretty much even all the way around.
And you are ever so right, it is great to be retired and not have to make my living at it anymore.  In truth, I have sold most of the shop equipment and have turned the horn shop into an office space.
John (Bigsmoke)