Newbie greeting and question about restoration

Hi, everyone!

I'm glad I found this place. Like most bearded men, I do use a razor to shave the upper part of my cheeks and my neck. After using disposables all my shaving life, a couple of years ago I made the transition to a safety razor. While I have been pleased with it, I thought I would like to move to a straight razor. This seems like the best place on the web to learn all about straight razors.

I will be ordering a starter set soon and look forward to using it. In addition, however, some years ago I inherited my wife's grandfather's old razor. He has been dead for over 20 years and I know didn't use this razor for many years before that. It was manufactured by Wade & Butcher Sheffield. Because he was a poor man, I know it was not a very expensive razor when he bought it and it has been first abused and then neglected for years. Nonetheless, it holds a fair amount of sentimental value for me because of who its owner was. I wonder whether you can tell me whether you think it would be worth having it restored so that I can use it or whether I should just leave well enough alone and just keep it in the top drawer of my dresser from where I can take it out to look at it every once in a while. I will try to attach some pictures of it I just took.

Many thanks.

First of all, that is a wonderful story i'm glad you found a relic to treasure and remember him by.

Pressing on. I see no harm in restoring it to its former glory, there are many people on SRP who would be happy to restore it for you.
There is the issue of sentimentality, if you were using it and broke it would devastate you ? If so maybe restoring it and placing it somewhere it can be admired and respected in safety would be the best way forward.

The choice is yours my friend.

Lovely razor in great shape and what an heirloom. Send it out to one of the guys here. Kind of depends where you are as to who to send it to. Personally, I'd use it.

The blade itself looks fine. It could be honed up and you could shave with it as is. You have two options for the blade. You can leave the existing patina on it, or you can have it buffed up to make it shiny like new.

The scales obviously need to be replaced. There are many options for scales. If you look in the workshop section you can get some ideas of what possibilities exist. Personally, because of the sentimentality of it, I'd recommend that you try to get it re-scaled with something similar to the current scales. Alternatively, you could go with fluorescent green acrylic scales with embedded glitter!

If you look in the workshop section, it can also help you find someone to do the work for you. If you look in the member services section of the classifieds you will find the people who are openly advertising their services.

Thanks for the quick replies. My inclination is to have it restored and then use it.

Utopian, I certainly would like to keep it as close as possible in appearance to what it is now, with similar scales. Keeping the patina on the blade would also be nice, but but it has a couple of patches of rust. Is it possible to clean the rust off the blade while preserving the patina?

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Originally Posted by Seminole

Utopian, I certainly would like to keep it as close as possible in appearance to what it is now, with similar scales. Keeping the patina on the blade would also be nice, but but it has a couple of patches of rust. Is it possible to clean the rust off the blade while preserving the patina?

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I doubt it. In order to fully remove the rust you're going to have to get to clean metal. At that point the blade will look patchy. In that case it would probably be best to uniformly buff the whole thing. Instead of going to a mirror finish though, you can just to it to a satin finish and have the scratch patterns run from spine to edge, replicating the original grinding marks.

Another alternative would be to then create a new patina on the cleaned up blade. I seem to recall that some have experimented with slightly tarnishing a blade to "restore" an antique look.

That one has serious potential...
As Ron has already pointed out either the classifieds or the "Gallery" in the workshop will show you tons of the work that is being done...

Please make sure that you mention to any potential Restorer that you contact that the razor in question is an Heirloom, there are very few of us that actually do those as they are irreplacable...

Welcome aboard the straight train and to SRP....