doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ivory/Brass sights

I've made several ivory beads using mammoth tusk. Pretty simple to do & I like the results. My only dislike is the smell when your working it into a bead shape. I always wear a respirator when cutting, filing or sanding it.

Was it Dale Edmonds who had sights ? I could be wrong.

Dale is retired from refinishing barrels, but he still has his lathe, I know he has a supply of mammoth ivory beads, and has made beads in past.
Whether he could be persuaded to make some is another thing.

A fellow by the name of Russ made them in the St Louis area. He did a lot of unusual repair jobs and may have coined the term JABC. I believe he checked out several years ago.

bill

Fossilized walrus and mammoth is legal in the US.
Raw walrus Ivory is legal in the US if its done by an Alaskan native.
There are states that have laws against fossilized ivory. One of those being NY.
Fossilized walrus and mammoth ivory is very easy to come up with around here. I have made a few ivory beads for my own guns on my wood lathe. Its not easy to do to make them look right and not something I want to do for others.

There is a "de minimus" regulation of the USFWS that allows interstate commerce in elephant ivory if it entered the country prior to 1990, not sport harvested, and if it is less than 200 gm. in weight.

I Inherited from an ancestor who was employed as a piano builder in Chicago circa 1900 several ivory key tops never installed on a keyboard. If anybody needs any, we probably could come to an understanding.

Each piece is about as thick as a dime, so yes, they are wafer thin, probably perfect for artistic inlay. But if a fellow could glue a few atop eachother, you could probably approximate any original sight bead or profile you wanted.

I have a set of piano ivories that I "harvested" from a piano my mother was having renovated, many years ago. They have remained unused for over 40 years, due to the thinness of the pieces. Aside from decorative inlays on m/l rifles I haven't found a use for them yet. But, maybe someday ................


Again, it's not truly fossilized. It's only in the first stages of fossilization. A more accurate term for it is "mineralized". A true fossil is like rock. Mammoth ivory can be worked just like currently harvested ivory. But, it usually has streaking and colors from the beginnings of the mineralization processes.


Stan

I bought a bag of ivory scraps years ago off eBay just before they banned selling the stuff. Odd shapes and various thicknesses. Have made a few sight for personal use but by the time I was done I stank like burned hair and if paid would have made about three bucks a day. Might try looking for cheap ivory carving made for the tourist trade. You see them in antique shops and flea markets. One several inches long would last a lifetime for beads. Real ivory stinks like burnt hair if you put a red hot metal pin on it. Cast epoxy does not, it smells sweeter to me.

Russ Ruppel. He was a fount of knowledge and wisdom. Truly one of a kind. He’s been gone quite a few years.

I miss Russ. He was a one of a kind and a font of knowledge.