W&B 6/8" Wedge - Vintage rebuild to original specs

G’day all,
finally finished my Vintage Rebuild of this neglected old Pre-1890 Wade & Butcher 6/8” Wedge
Attachment 177422
works performed as follows:
striped down the broken scales thinking it had just lost the wedge & pin found it was a wedgeless scales assembly, this changed my game plan as now had to work out how to do a wedgeless set up.
used what was left of the old scales and another old W&B to fill in the gaps for the new scales template.

Attachment 177423
new buffalo horn scales, basically I hand shaped & sanded the outside using the original scales as a guide, but leaving a bit of extra thickness on them,
then I used my dremel as a sort of milling machine to make the wedge cuts the same & cut out the inner face of the scales.
any time I saved not needing to make a wedge I made up for working out how to do this, but now I have a technique it should be quite easy to replicate.

Attachment 177424
more final hand sanding through to 5k inside & out followed by a good Ren. wax polishing

Attachment 177426
Attachment 177425
as for the blade
I gave the heavily scaled blade a CLR soak to help free the scaly rust on the blade worked a tret but don’t do it for long once was enough refer post CLR & the light touch post.

re sized & brass bushed the pivot hole so it is nice & tight now ( not original but the way I like them )
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this was all followed by umpteen hours of hand sanding to remove as much pitting as I thought necessary while avoiding the stamp as much as possible, I would say easily in excess of 20hrs of hand cramping from 80 to 5000 grit & I am still not 100%
followed by Autosol polish & a final coat of Ren. wax


Now as the original wedge pin & washers were long gone & the pivot hardware wasn’t far behind it,
I have to give a special thanks to *Hart* for parting with & providing the replacement original bullseye washers so I could keep this as close to original as I could possibly get.
:rock:
Harts washers were received with pins still intanct, I found when I broke them down last night that 1 of the sets actually had the inner washers also, so I used this on the wedge end for the extra pressure.

Attachment 177430
My 1 good original with inner washer, Harts replacement in centre and my rough attempt at making some on the right.



Final assembly
W&B 6/8” Wedge
new wedgeless scales
W&B steel bullseye washers
new brass thrust washers from 10 thou shim
new brass pins
and some more Ren. wax polishing

Attachment 177431
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not honed yet but hopefully will be in the next week,
as I have another old W&B full hollow that is only getting hand polished for now,
then I will hone them both together as my arms are getting a bit el natural looking again. LOL

That is a fantastic restoration and it looks as if it should be sitting in a shop keepers window on Fleet st. I have seen several razors in the condition that yours was in originally and thought of how much I liked that rough and tumble look with the wedge end wrapped in waxed twine. I would like to see one finished like that with all the warts and imperfections open to public view.

Attachment 177437
this is the other I mentioned that I am going to hone at the same time,
since the binding is nice & tight it is only getting a clean & light polish, no sanding or other work & will remain as is until it fails in another 100 years maybe
I love the narley true to form old school character that is has, it looks used & loved & the blade is in remarkable shape actually
The scales are almost identical to & what i used to complete the details for the wedge scales.

Hey Mate, that's a lovely restoration and this thread is going straight in my "Tips and Tricks" folder :nj

Great work! It turned out quite nice and looks original!

Very nice work and tutorial, time period correct! i have a Wade & butcher from that era with the wedge being part of the scales like you made. On mine the wedge part is only on one side.

Nothing wrong with that work Bubba! Nice Job and a Great Tutorial! Thank you! :tu

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Originally Posted by Martin103

Very nice work and tutorial, time period correct! i have a Wade & butcher from that era with the wedge being part of the scales like you made. On mine the wedge part is only on one side.

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I have a Joseph Rodgers Microtome with a similar 1 sided wedge cut into one scale, but I think is due to the off centred blade arrangement of the Microtome

Very nicely done, you paid particular attention to thinking it through, and taking your time, and the results show it :tu

Fantastic work. I am inspired by work like this. Thx

Very nice, I'm glad to have helped out a little. It really came together.

this is a front side closed more square on view also
Attachment 177507

it's those little details Hart that finnish it off and make it look so much better thanks again

A noble blade wrapped in a fine Tuxedo.

Nice job. Like that you addressed the heel. Hope it shaves well for you.

My only advice, or should I say gssixgun's advice which stuck with me, would be to try establishing some sort of a bevel before all that "hand cramping".
The first restoration that won't take an edge will be enough to convince you. ;)

thanks Oz,
I definately gave it the bevel test before I even broke it down as it was gonna stay a display piece if not honable,
the edge at the heel was good but a bit of clean up on the tang side of the heel was required due to some rot.
the rest of the blade shape is as received, it had very little hone wear but was blunter than the back of a butter knife.

Beautiful restore. I have a pre-1890 W&B wedge on the way. I can't wait to see what I can do with it, as this will be my first restore. It has wooden scales on it that appear to be original, or a damn good reproduction. Again, beautiful work. I'll be using yours as a watermark on how it should be done.

Nicely done sir!

Awesome job, it turned out great!!

Is there more information out there regarding resizing the pivot hole and using a brass bushing? This resto looks great. I have a very similar W&B but I'm hesitant to get started on it since there is a lot of pitting near the edge. I think I might lose a lot of the original size once I start working on it. $4 flea market find so I can't complain too much but if I can get it to look 50% as good as yours I'll be content. Again, great job!

Searched "sleeving pivot" in the box at the top of the page and came up with these...

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Literally the first four hits.

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Originally Posted by TwistedOak

Searched "sleeving pivot" in the box at the top of the page and came up with these...

1
2
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4

Literally the first four hits.

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Excuse my ignorance.

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Originally Posted by BoozeDaily

Excuse my ignorance.

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no worries, folks just forget to search the wealth of information already covered on this site. At least you didn't make a new thread for it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BoozeDaily

I have a very similar W&B but I'm hesitant to get started on it since there is a lot of pitting near the edge.

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Booze I see you have some other responses for the pivot hole, so you see there are many ways to skin that cat,
as for starting your resto with a heavily pitted blade, it is highly recommended by many to set a bevel & confirm the edge is complete and free from pitting near the edge before you start, then confirm your path foward from there, if you want to shave with it or just display as to how much effort gets put into it rather than find out later it is not a shaver after many hours of sanding.