Thread: Wade & Butcher dressed in Ebony

Just finished up this medium sized hollow ground Wade and Butcher that I dressed in stabilized Madagascar Ebony scales. The wedge is custom soft lead and the collars are replica domed brass with brass pins. I usually use horn or camel bone for scales but really like the way this wood feels and find Ebony to be a really hard wood that need no lining for additional strength. Sanded the scales to a thin 3mm just like the originals. Need to put a nice edge on it and she'll be good to go.

Great job - looks like you've got it sitting perfectly between the scales, and I quite like the wedge as well. The Medium hollows are a fantastic grind. Great work!

Congratulations on a job well done. I agree with you on the scales, they go good with this razor.

Well done, the scales are beautiful.

Job well done. Looks great.

That has ME has a nice grain to it. Did you put a finish on it? Very nice work.

Where did you get the bullseye washers? I made some dumb mistakes and ruined some nice ones on a couple razors I'm planning on rescaling.

Originally Posted by JP5

That has ME has a nice grain to it. Did you put a finish on it? Very nice work.

Where did you get the bullseye washers? I made some dumb mistakes and ruined some nice ones on a couple razors I'm planning on rescaling.

Yes, those are very nice washers, exactly like WB originals. Most of the ones like that I've seen are steel though.

Lovely grain and colouring to that ebony, and great use of the washers. Overall lovely result and no doubt will be a great shaver too. Thumbs way up.

Great job on the profile. Even thickness and yet not "to thick".
Really like the grain pattern in that Ebony as well.
Congrats!

Originally Posted by JP5

That has ME has a nice grain to it. Did you put a finish on it? Very nice work.

Where did you get the bullseye washers? I made some dumb mistakes and ruined some nice ones on a couple razors I'm planning on rescaling.

I used clear stabilized madagascar ebony so all you really need to do is to finsh it like you would do for horn. I didn't need to finish it with anything else. I have been using a small company called River Ridge Products in Lady Smith Wisconsin. I ship them the wood in small blank pieces and it takes about two weeks or so to treat it with their clear stabilization service and they ship it back to me. I have had them do ebony, buckeye burl, black walnut and even spanish cedar from some old cigar boxes I had laying around. Their web site is www.rrpwhite.com. Their prices are very reasonable and the woods turn out great and make super scales IMHO.

After years of trying to make my own bullseye and domed collars/washers for Wade & Butcher restorations in my garage workshop, I threw in the towel and decided to have them outsourced. It was important to me to make the replica design as close to what the original 18 & 19th Century Sheffield cutlers turned out. So about a year ago I completed the research, design, and finally wrote the technical specifications and sent them to a metal manufacturing company for production. I insisted that they be punched from sheet metal and had them use 26 guage sheet metal in brass, nickel silver and stainless steel. IMHO they came out pretty close to the originals, are probably stronger, won't rust and seem to look great on the larger restored Sheffield straight razors. About 9 months ago I began selling them on eBay http://www.ebay.com/usr/ajkenne4xm3 at what I consider a reasonable price to recoup some of my production costs. Fortunately and happy to say that these washer/collar replicas have received great feedback from the world wide restoration community.