There are plenty of ivory substitutes about aka plastic. This was the first one I found *** LINK ***

John

.The knife making fraternity use what they call 'ivory micarta' which is actually sheets of cream paper laminated by pressure using polyeter resin……the resulting material is then cut and sanded to shape and the many layers give a slightly grained effect as found on some real ivory

I'm making a model of some scientific equipment from about 1830 at the moment that has what may be ivory for some small parts (I have a sketch and some descriptions but not in detail). It does not need to be exact but does need to be functional at 1:1. I am using some cream 133 ivory acrylic which will be close enough for what I want but will clearly not look perfectly like ivory. Maybe a few longitudinal scratches with dirt rubbed in will make it more realistic looking.

Martin C

Apparently you can pickle a peeled potato in glacial acetic acid to make a substitute. I've never tried it though.

I’ve read somewhere-can’t remember where- that one of the colours of Corian is a reasonable match. And that would be available in the dimensions you need whereas ivory substitute is often only listed in smallish rounds for turning.

Just looked,loads of offcuts on ebay.

Edited By Frank Gorse on 14/10/2021 14:06:30

I can confirm the potato in vinegar story,. but like John I have not tried it.

I was told about it by a small girl who had read it in her Girl Guide Annual and told me "because you mess about with things in your shed"

Rod

The GPS material Jason mentioned handles very like ivory, but lacks the crosshatching effect of real ivory. There is a rather cheaper material called Arvorin, which is made of resin and available in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It's a bit brittle so needs to be worked with care but does have a more realistic (though clearly not real) effect. White delrin can be baked in an oven and with a little care will scorch to a nice cream tone that can be polished. There is also the Guitar Parts stuff, which now includes Elforyn – they're pretty expensive but very nice and some of their grades are uncannily realistic.

Bone requires a lot of processing to degrease it, and if you don't do it properly it looks fine and then starts sweating fat a few days later.

You can still get actual mammoth ivory, although it's much more expensive and not particularly great quality these days. And if you search popular trading sites for "natural material", you can often find old and ugly bits of sculpture and carving that the world would not miss if they were recycled.

Hi,

I used to have an old book of "useful" chemical recipes which included the potato/acid reaction. From memory, it said to use sulphuric acid instead of acetic. I followed their recipe but no joy – I ended up with a gooey mess which didn't dry down to an inert hard material. I've looked for the book but can't find it – I guess I threw it away after I found it to be untrustworthy.

I'd give bone a go – the experts on the Antiques Road Show have to look twice to differentiate bone from ivory. A pelvis from a cow is a pretty hefty piece of material. It's important that the bone is raw, apparently cooking it melts the fat into the bone. Scraping all the flesh off followed by washing with detergent and water followed by drying then soaking in acetone seems to be the way to degrease bone. It would help I guess to cut a piece a bit bigger than the final size to maximise the degreasing.

Regards,

Alan C.

Dicktum is another tool supplier that I use who do a couple of versions and in flat sheet.

This make interesting [albeit disturbing] reading: **LINK**

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/giant-clams-are-being-stolen-and-carved-like-ivory

MichaelG.

I think it's not vinegar but glacial acetic acid which is much nastier stuff. Other sources suggest soaking in sulphuric acid then boiling in the same, but someone who tried it said he just ended up with a sour soft boiled spud. Glacial acetic would make sense as it extracts water and also turns cellulose into cellulose acetate ("celluloid&quot. Also could be done with nitric but that is cellulose nitrate which is highly inflammable. As always, Google is your friend.