Quote Originally Posted by pnird View Post
Hi

The deterioration of my Warrior grips is most marked as a de-lamination; one has shed a triangular corner, and the exposed inner surface is striated and has a marked grain. I suppose that these grips were made by application of heat and pressure; on both pistols, the appearance of the chequered areas is as if they were becoming blurred - maybe the heat and/or pressure were insufficient? Whatever, they seem unstable over the long term.

John

According to an 1876 workshop book, horn mouldings were made by taking wafers of horn and compressing them together under heat. The horn becomes soft and the layers "weld" together, and it also takes the impression of any fine detail in the mould. The product can then be dyed any chosen colour and polished, or the wafers could be dyed before laminating.

You can see why the technique gave way to vulcanite (sulphur hardened rubber) and then synthetic plastic bakelite!