Thread: Wostenholm and son Celebrated I.XL restore

Evening gents.
Tried to bring this one back to life without separating the razor from the scales.


The scales are horn I believe, and while there is a small crack on the rear side at the wedge, after tightening up the pins, the wedge, and razor are both tight and true.
It honed up very well after some work. Old British wedges seem very hard steel to me.

It's almost a pure wedge, maybe 1/4 hollow? Barber's notch and quite a hefty blade at just shy of 7/8th.
The original scales are showing their age but are still intact enough for my liking. I'm guessing it's from pre 1900 and am looking forward to trying it out. First shave in the morning after my coffee.
Cheers all.

Superb work, great job on saving the scales!

I have a slight appreciation for the work that went into it now....I've gained an understanding of how tape makes setting a bevel much easier (I think)...how long did it take you to get it shave ready and what stones did you use?

Handsome razor you have there, Mike.

Nice work Mike

Thanks gents.
The cleaning etc was done over a few nights in sessions at the belt sander and buffing wheels respectively.
The honing started at 1k and three layers of scotch 22 heavy duty electrical tape. It's consistently .010" and wears very slowly I find.
I stayed at that, replacing the top layer twice over about 90 minutes of honing circles, japanese, and x strokes. Once I had it biting the thumb pad full length I took a break and did some scale work, all on the wheels. Not sure if anything can seal them up or not but they look ok in their oldness to me.
When I went back to the stones, I removed one layer of tape, so now 2 in total and I went norton 4/8 using a pyramid progression after 50 dedicated 4k circle/xstroke sets.
From there I went to the coticule with heavy slurry, and went 20 japanese, than 20 X strokes. Repeated that with dilution till the coti was clear. 4 sets of the above in total.
Then I finished on my Charnly Forest with 100 oiled X strokes and very little pressure.
Than to the strops @ 20 cloth laps, 80 bridal leather, and 100 kanayama finishers.
I find it a lesson in patience not to bear down in my eagerness to set a bevel. I think that's why my mid blade bevels always seem to be slightly wider than he toe and heel area..
Hell, I'm working on it, hehe.

Nice job Mike! Lookin almost new!