HOW TO DEAL WITH RAW HORN
DIANA SHELL WERTZ·WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2013·
You'll need to let them air out first,  if they're smelly like many are from a Non-Tandy source 
(put them in a hot dry loft or attic space somewhere, after you've throughly sponged them off within and without, with a couple of  heaping tablespoons of baking Soda disolved in a bowl of hot water,...you can start going over them with the sponge when the water is cool enough to work with  
( If here's crudge in the interior bottom of the horn,...  Pour some boiling waterinto the upright horn (about 2 or 3 cups  worth, depending on how long the horn is and how grungy it is,)   You'll neeed to soften the crud....do this with the horn set upright in the kitchen sink first, for support ,....then walk away and go do something else for awhile as it cools. (This may well be smelly, so if you have a bucket it will stand upright in,....and a garage or someplace else you can close off from the dogs,...set your work area up there,.....
when you come back later to checkon it and find it cooled,..pour out the water and  drop some Baking Soda (a tablespoon or more) down into the horn (I have an old-fashioned long-handled iced 'tea'spoon for this purpose,...it allows me to get most of the BS down deep into the horn, without it getting wasted on the wet horn sides,....OR,.....you can just turn the horn upside down with a paper towel stuffed in it,...to let it dry first, but still be softened inside)
 To the B.S. add about a half a cup of cheap vinegar to it,... That'll BOIL the crudge out,....repeat as often as necessary,....after the first boil of BS and Vinegar, seattles (stops rolling)....leave the stuff in there and work a baby's bottle brush (one dollar at the Dollar Daze store,...ditto your Baking Soda and maybe your vinegar,...I'm part Scot. and always determined to save where I can)(bottle brush)  down deep into the horn bottom,,,,use an up and down scrubbing technique while occassionally twisting it,....this will further further loosen the crudge,... pour out, add more water to rinse, repeat with the B.S. and vinegar, then brush, until nothing else more gets loosenedcomes out.  This processis all 100 % food safe.  I NEVER add Any kind of chemicals or harsh soaps etc. to anything that will later come in contactwith my mouth or food...
NOW,......Put the rinsed-out horn up into a dry place to air out, after you've wiped the whole inside and outside down with Soda water and sponge,..... NOTHING else is going to get rid of that smell,....but the cleaning I've detailed,...and hot airing for awhile.
Once the smell is gone,.....It's time to start prepping the outside.You'll need to soak the horn overnight in water.  It doesn't have to be hot,....Horn is a natural material and as such water can effect it and make it more easily workable.   At home, I just use a long shallow Rubbermaid container with a lid.  I don't have dogs,...I have an inside cat-princess,...but I live deep in the country and woods, and have lost more than one cool project left outside to oppotunistic local dogs, looking for a new chew toy,...I watched my prized snapping turtle shell get snatched out of a pan of straight BLEACH,...and run off in a neighbor dog's mouth one morning,....(whew !)(sniff !)
NOW I LID and even add more bins on top of my un-guarded experimentsprojects. (!)
So soak it overnight,...and next day (or the one after if you don't have time yet,...a day will make no difference,...a month, will)
Have your prep area ready,...I have professional wood scrapers I use, BUT,...the blade of an old carbon steel kitchen knife will doJUST as well,....as I've long experimented with such things,.....What you are going to need to be doing, is SCRAPING down the outter layer of horn,...to get down to the pearly Good stuff.   Horn isnothing but a big layering of protein. As it grows it keeps adding more protein on top of protein (don't anyone ask me HOW this works,..i.e. as far as I know,...it just keeps adding it to the outter edges as the cow grows,...rather like a fingernail)  Anyway,...like a wood grain the protein has a definate 'grain',.....if you apply your knife bladescraper the wrong way to it,...you DIG INTO the grain.So you want to work WITH the grain,...away from it.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, Horn is SLICK to apply anything to,....it is so resilient that in olden times it had apparently been used to make scale armor to deflect steel weapons and as such, it was also all but impenitrable, in an of itself, but the spaces between,....httpwww.historynet.comweaponry-norman-arms-and-armour.htm,...
Anyway,.....You will need to stablize the horn so you can hold your chosen scraper with 2 hands for dragging the blade, up the length of the horn.A steady even pressure is what works best.    Between your knees is the best position for your arms,...but the horn is hard and slippery.You need to hold the larger end between your knees,....but you'll need to wrap the horn with something something that will be comfortableand not slip on it,....forget a towel,...I tried that,...it doesn't work.   What i found Would work,..was to wrap the horn with some layersof rubberized shelf liner,...the kind that has like little bubbles of non-slip rubber,.....it comes in a roll at Walmart, Target etc. and cost under $ 5 for the smallest roll, and comes in a number of different colors,...black, brown, powder blue and buff etc.  This works Great to hold the horn or any other project you need 2 hands to work tools with, and don't want sliding around on a table,....it's invaluable in my studio.
So prep the wide end with the rubber wrap,...bold the widest part of the horn between your knees, and start scraping the horn upwards.You'll have to experiment with the scraperknife angle until you find the one that works,....when you find the sweet spot on your scraping tool, you'll know it because you'll feel it suddenly 'grip' in the horn and start to raise a thin curl of horn in it's wake.  THIS is what you're going for !   The process is messy though,...so wear a good work apron or something similar you can take off and shake before you re-enter yourhome otherwise you'll have horn scrapings everywhere,.....
What you're wanting to do is scrape off all the dirty and damaged areas of horn,....to bring out the luster underneath.Some horns are black,...some brown, some cream, and some BEAUTIFUL Pearly,...but you won't often won't be able to tell what you have untilyou scape down the years of horn abuse.You may find some areas damaged more than others,.....downright indented,....a flat knife blade isn't going to get down into that to smooth the rough  area,....so barring once of the curved wood scrapers I have,...you can easily make a tool for scraping depressionsby taking a file to one long edge of an old spoon,....on an indented area of the horn,...you'll need to workscrape from the outter areas, into the center,...because in any other direction you'll be digging into the grain.
    Once the horn is all in all smoothly scraped,....You can take some warm soapy dish water and a nylon pad, to finish scrubbing out the inside.
OK,...that's about it, for finishing the raw horn,....