Thread: Old razors etc. Is this equipment still good to use/restore ?

I am still very new, I had collected some old razors and other shaving items a while back but have not used nor had any of these honed yet.

I got a starter kit from kenrup a while back and now I am interested in possibly using/restoring some of this older equipment.

I was wondering on the opinion on which razors may be best to restore/get honed first ? In addition to information on a hone and if a strop is still usable?

I have picked out "some" of the razors from a collection I purchased locally I feel these are the better ones out of the collection and the other are probably just crap.

Ill do the hone and strop first. I cannot figure out what grit this stone is. And there is a tiny chip in the stone, will this affect the use of the stone too much ? Or must a stone be perfect. The hone does not seem to be used very much or if at all.


And the chip in the hone


The strop has some nicks in it, but it is a nice wide strop, the widest I have. Would these nicks make the strop useless ? Im not sure on what it takes to make a strop no longer usable or as effective as a perfect well worn strop.





Last is all the razors



The top two razors (left to right)
1. H. Bocker & Co (tang)
Solingen (tang)
Edelweiss - Registered Trade Mark (On blade)

2. Friodur no stain (tang)
J.A. Henckels twinworks Solingen Germany 451 (tang other side)

Second row (left to right)
1. Maxard Solingen Germany (tang)
High (Maxard) Class (blade)

2. mapsh brothers &
Ponds Works
Sheffield England (Tang)
ROXO (On blade)

3. Friedr.Ern&Co
Weyer-Solingen(tang)
Jolly Boy (Blade)
Made in Germany 385 (tang other side)

4. Star(tang)
Superior star razor magnetic (blade)
1000(Tang other side)
Has a nasty rust spot on other side of blade... really nasty

The ones I was thinking about getting honed/resored first are in this priority

Friodur - First row second razor
Roxo - Second row second razor
Boker - Second row third razor
Jolly Boy - First row first razor
Maxard - second row first razor (meh dosn't seem to be anything special)
Star - second row fourth razor (unless its rare its seems to be junk IMO)

Any thoughts on which of these razors are worth restoring why or why not ? Or which are worth keeping as collector pieces and not shavers and which ones need to be thrown in the tool box to cut engine hoses

And if that hone and strop will be usable ?

Sorry for the long post.

Wow , just want to say very nice buy, all those seem to me very restorable good razors. They just seem they need to be honed!
The swaty hone is considered to be of very fine grit, 10k or maybe more, I have one of those and that one in particular is usually highly rated. I'd say you probably need to lap it and take care of that nick so it won't ruin the edge of your blades.
I'll leave the other questions for the more experienced guys out here.

It looks like all of the razors are in good shape.
If you want any of them honed only, I will do for free if you want to take care of the shipping.

I'd swap #2 and #3 razors. All of them look in good condition and candidates to try them as shavers.

Your hone is not for sharpening dull razors, it's for keeping sharp razors this way. You won't be able to hone your razors with it. That chip on the side requires very good honing skills too, you'll be better off chamfering that edge, or better use the other side if it's good

The strop looks good, it's hard to tell from your pictures what these cuts are exactly. Iif there are flaps cut of leather, put them back together with contact cement.
Looks like the surface may have been sanded, or perhaps it's just conditioning of some sort. If it hasn't I'd try to not sand it either, as that's the whole point of having shell.