Waldo candidate for first restore.

So some of you may have seen this razor when I first posted it in show and tell. I'll put up a pic for clarity. It had a great deal of rust on the show side, not much on the back. Cleaned up the active rust with #0000 steel wool, WD-40, and an Xacto knife. Gave it a little go with Blue Magic.

Engraving is pretty much intact, blade has significant pitting, some on the edge but it is a wedge and I'm sure there is good steal somewhere. One scale is cracked, other is peeling at the edge(or delaminating?), lead spacer is shot.

I love the look of a mirror finish blade(there is also something to be said for original patina) but I want to preserve the engraving. With the pitting I would need to remove a great deal of metal most likely ruining said engraving. So I'm wondering do I mask of the engraving and sand everything else and just try to detail that area minimally? There is almost no pitting on the back of the blade. Or, do I just accept the patina, which probably wouldn't bother me that much but would like the chance to practice sanding and polishing the blade.

For the scales I was thinking wenge, ebony, bogwood, or horn. Really leaning toward horn. Ideally with a mammoth ivory wedge. Was thinking stainless hardware if dark horn. Probably brass if I go with the wood but debatable. Any reason to keep the old scales?

Looking for opinions and discussion. I should mention I paid $3 for this razor

I've used a product called Evapo Rust, it won't harm good metal, plastic or anything other than the active rust. You soak the blade in it for several hours, even overnight, and it lifts all the rust off the blade leaving only the good metal behind. It really is an amazing product, and it saves an awful lot of hand work. It also quite nicely cleans up dirty scales.

Here's the link on the info:

Evapo Rust :: Rust Stop Canada

Hope this helps, may not be for everyone, but FYI.

The very first thing you should do is try to set a bevel. If you can then go for the restore. If you can't get a good bevel set there really isn't much point. The pitting at the toe is very deep. You might have to remove so much metal that the geometry will be shot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RezDog

The very first thing you should do is try to set a bevel. If you can then go for the restore. If you can't get a good bevel set there really isn't much point. The pitting at the toe is very deep. You might have to remove so much metal that the geometry will be shot.

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That's good advice RezDog but I don't have any hones yet. I meant to mention that in my original post. I know that it is good practice to set a bevel before doing the restoration work but not possible at the moment. I didn't really think it would be a huge deal until you mentioned messing up the geometry.