I´ve completely failed

Well I started out with the notion that the fusion razor gear was simply too expensive... I´ve bickered about that for quite some times. And one night a
I scooted around on the net and found an article about straight razors.... in the lines of: A razor for life, with no more expenses on razor gear. (shave cream excluded off course).

Nice, I thought a way to cut away some expenses...I then found this place and thought: Yeah why not?

Well I ashamed to say I didn`t save a dime....just the opposite...i didn't start out that long ago, and by now i´ve allready used more money on shaving gear in a couple of months than i´ve would´ve spend in a couple of years....who would have thought shaving could be so much fun???

i´ve read some books and I now enjoy both shaving with straight and DE-razors (although by now I can only achieve near BBS with the DE). I have now tossed the gillete fusion completely to curb as I dont need it for touch-ups and finishing anymore.

I even went as far as aquiring some razors from a fleamarket, to see if I can get them going sometimes down the road... I´m well aware that I wont put those to my face in any near future, not only because I need to learn to shave properly first but I cant hone yet, and probably wont start buy a honong stone just yet.... but its really fun and kinda meditative to polish up a blade and make new scales.... for now i have done that with only one (finished today)... but i plan to start on another in the next couple of day

Nowhere near perfect, but I´m kinda happy with the result
Attachment 123675Attachment 123676

It is not just shaving, it is a hobby as well. Sticking with vintage it is cheaper than some of my other hobbies.
Looks great.... now on to honing.

You mean that this is your first pair of scales? They look great!

yes these are my first pair of....well everything :) thank you for the kind words.... I´ve watched a lot of youtube videos on restoring and scale making

Looks like you did a GREAT job on the restore and scales!

I was confused by the title, I sure don't see any failure in those scales you just made. They look very good on that classy blade. You may have failed to save a ton of money but sounds like you gained a ton of fun. That is the kind of failure I can and do live with. Welcome to the club.

Bob

Looks great

nice, good work. you have made nice scales imo! A good start en get better and better thumbs up mate

LOL Bob, the title was more like a comic irony, yeah i failed to save money(wich was the original plan with this) , but gained something i find truly fantastic. so i kinda failed and won on the same time. ;)

I had the some problem with saving money. When I first decided to pick up straight shaving, I was really hoping to save money. I was going to buy only one vintage razor (at least for the next year or longer), one strop, use the cheap boar brush I started with, and always use cheap to medium priced soaps and creams.
Needless to say, the AD's took over and I went from around $90 (which I thought was very good compared to what most people spend) for a decent quality strop and Genco Head Barber 5/8, to now having spent several hundred dollars on everything from a badger brush (swore I would never drop the $$ for) to expensive shaving creams and soaps (also swore not to drop the cash for). However, I can honestly say this new hobby is my favorite!

"May the Straights of Heaven open up and lead you to tranquility."

Gargoyle47,

I'm going to have to join your club. I failed too... Ain't it great! I'm not even a month in and I already have three razors!

Bruce

Your doing great with the restores. Who needs money anyway? I am still buying Mach 3's myself. Just so in a hundred years I can sell them on z-bay and get big bucks for NOS vintage razors. I am storing them right next to my 14 cases of Twinkies in the closet.

It's a bit like fly fishing. People hear the word fishing & think it's inexpensive. ;)

Welcome to SRP :)

You have done very well. Each of the straight razors that you restore can be resold at any time for more than you have into them. Financially you will be in a breakeven or better position. That is what most people call a good hobby........... and you get a great shave! :tu

Very nice!

Thanks guys

:D 10pups twinkiecloset made me think of a story.... we don´t have twinkies here in Denmark, what we have is a brand called "Dancake" they´ve been around forever, and have achieved kinda cultish status with stuff like "lemon moon" (translated from danish) and "roulade" which is kind of a sugarcoated layercake bun rolled up with rasberry jelly in between. now this story is from a friends parents.
sometimes down the 80´s they had a new roof done, 15 years or so pass by and for some reason theyre rummaging around on the attic and find a "roulade" that they have forgotten between the rafters, now although the hermetically sealed package looks dusty, the content looked fine... now these people are really brave and they dare to open and taste the cake ....and it tasted and felt exactly like a cake bought the same day..... really makes you wonder what they put in that stuff :o in a postapocalyptic future twinkies and dancake will still be a viable foodsource :OT ;)

@randycake hmm havent thought of that....but a good point i shall certainly use down the road, when the wife rolls eyes (again)

by the way, for those interested i posted some more pics of above project onthis thread: http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...t-restore.html

Your doing great man! If you can make scales like that already I'm sure you'll do great once you start learning to hone, I'm just starting to get the basics of honing down myself but I really need to make some scales I already bought different kinds of wood and I got a bandsaw for that specific purpose. ARgh, I'm going to sit down and trace out some scale designs right now.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by saitou

Your doing great man! If you can make scales like that already I'm sure you'll do great once you start learning to hone, I'm just starting to get the basics of honing down myself but I really need to make some scales I already bought different kinds of wood and I got a bandsaw for that specific purpose. ARgh, I'm going to sit down and trace out some scale designs right now.

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have fun :beer1:

I am in exactly same boat ...bought a scroll saw some olive,walnut and zebrano for exactly that purpose of making scales. :D now the only problem is that i live in an appartment on 2nd floor but luckily have a balcony and its mighty cold in denmark right now (with wind it feels like -20 degrees celcius) so most of my shaping and polishing happens over the kitchen sink..... luckily i have a (most of time) understaning wife ....well sort of :D

I'm a little put off by the way wetshaving gets promoted. I do not agree that any rationale that gets someone into the hobby is a good one. Still, glad you're having fun and hope you continue to play with razors and do rescales and the like.

yes, well, maybe we should put up a sticky informing newbes that the "you can save money this way" scheme is valid only if you buy ONE razor, one brush etc, and that it's mostly used to convince SWAMBO and nothing else. I'm very conservative in my purchases, been at it for almost 2 years and "only" have a couple of boar brushes, 4 razors and one on the way... I'll probably break even in about 5 years if I stop buying hardware now and buy just software (soaps and such). I can think of at least 2 more razors I want... it's like I "saved"a ton of money by buying all my scuba equipment (for real) only it still cost me almost 8k$ over the years... just the yearly inspection of all my regulators and stuff is about 350$. come to think of it, I met my wife on a diving safari, so scuba probably cost me a lot more;)

what do you mean Tierdaen? I think its great, that a thing i used to think of as a tedious chore, is now something I really like doing. i feel the results of my shaves are WAY better now than it ever were with the gillette fusion toys i used before. (and will never use again). And if its the headline of this thread it is (as i mentioned earlier) just a comic irony ...meant as something funny (once you read the rest of the post) and i will most definetly keep on with the traditional wetshaving and most certainly also the relaxing restorations

Great job, the restoration looks great.

Russell

That's what I told my wife....save money! Then I just asked for the Internet card and dropped another $250!!! 3 weeks into this hobby and $500 later! It's a ton of fun and been very rewarding in a smooth shave.....I'll leave he honing to Lynn for now though! Looks great have fun!:beer1: