1. Trimming

To make horn shiny it must be trimmed and polished. The trimming of the convex parts does not present any problems. Wood rasps or coarse sandpaper may be used for this.

Manual scraping with sandpaper is a long and tedious operation. A well-equipped workshop will use a sanding machine, such as that shown in figure V.1, fitted with a supple sanding head and coarse sandpaper discs.

Figure V.1: Sanding machine

Removal of rough areas in concave parts of the horn is a more complex task as rasps and sanding discs cannot reach the hollow parts. Care must be taken to smooth rough areas while the horn is flat, i.e. before bending or stamping.