Custom-scaled Kikuboshi

[sharptonn]

Having enough of everything else, I decided to get a few western-grind Japanese razors. My birthday was last week and on that day the mail brought me a sweet 7/8 plus Kikuboshi with some rather plain black scales as well as a used 'Tokyo' strop formerly used by the same barber, K. Yamamoto. The blade appeared NOS, but in looking at the scales, scratched and obviously used, I started digging. I had bought these scales long ago. Back when you could send a check for an Ebay purchase. Green abalone, rough with all the occlusions and natural. Done well, they had come sloppily pinned to an Imperial 'Eagle etch' blade with a hunky spacer of faux-tortoise celluloid. Nothing seemed to go with them. As fine as they were, nothing.
So now, all of a sudden, they screamed Japanese to me and I went to it. I made a wedge from white PVC and oversized the shell down to the nickel-silver liners with end-mills by hand and sized 4 of Babur's silver-plated collars to just above the shell. I did the RubnBuff on the tang stamps and tail stamp in gold to match the blade etch, CA'd some of the holes and pits in the shell, sanded and polished. Pinned-up, it all seems good to me. The scales are a bit heavy, yet so is the blade. As tightly as I got the pivot, it all seems fine. The strop is an enigma. Well used, yet feels like butter. It could have been made by Kanayama, I suppose. The hardware is same. Anyhoo, after working on it several days, I am now in the Japanese razor fold. Sorry about the picture quality. The shell seems to freak out the camera! Cannot lose THIS! Bad-sharp, I took care to avoid any damage to the edge and am hoping Yamamoto's edge will be just right with some stropping on this strop for a Sunday shave. We shall see!
Thanks for looking!