Thread: Vintage American.

This Burger & Baumgard. New York blade has been a pain from the start .
However I wanted to try a vintage USA blade and the price I paid for it convinced me to persevere.

The blade has a lovely spine and it is quite small and delicate , finishing up at a width of 13mm.

There was deep pitting all over, yet I stuck with 400 grit paper and I think it paid off.
Every weekend I put a few hours here n there into sanding and it took an age . I left 3 small pits because I would still be sanding today if I didn't stop. Also the stamps were beginning to disappear .
From all the hours I put into sanding I can say that this vintage metal is very tough.
I finished on 3k paper and Blue Magic.

One thing that I noticed well into the sanding sessions was a slight part missing from the edge , about a cm in from the toe end .
So I either finished with a tapered end or reduced the whole edge . Aesthetics means a lot to me so I had to correct the whole edge , going from a DMT 325 to a glass 500.
When I finally finished and it took an age I noticed that there was still a slight dip in the edge haha back to the DMT.

For some reason there was play in the pivot holes . I can only guess that they used thicker pins? Although mocked up it was perfect. This led to pinning and re pinning a few times *sigh*

In the end I sanded down one of the scale sides, quite thin but the blade centres which is all I care about.

Honing the blade was a complete nightmare.
Coming off a magnificent 7/8ths Greaves shave, I decided that my next shave would be with this little one.
Most nights after work I honed this blade, again and again using 2 layers of tape and synthetic hones excluding the Escher but I was never satisfied .

Setting the bevel was really difficult , even though I was reaching the edge?

Finally I added one more layer of tape , a really thin electrical tape. That did the job and possibly gave me the correct angles for a decent edge.

Yesterday I set the bevel , bingo, spot on, I knew I was in business.
I then took it through a progression an the Nakayama.
Stropping this little blade was also dodgy , I had to be really careful. If I cut my Kanayama I think I would just break down lol

The shave was amazing , quite difficult and I had to really take my time due to the smallness of the blade but it took care of a 10 day thick beard with no problems, no weepers and a BBS finish.
Very nice . However I wont use it again. Its stropped n oiled. I'm just glad the ordeal is over









One must break for refreshments

That is a small blade but looks like you did a fine job. And sticking to it when its not going easy makes the end product worth the effort. Good job.

Very cool little blade. Well done.

Nice save! Looks like Torrey had a hand in that blade?

Nice job, I like it!

Very nice restoration work, Ferdinand Baumgard & Frederick Burger started this jobbing business in 1876. As far as being American blade it is more then probable that it was made for them, could be Torrey like Sharptonn Mentioned above. Nevertheless a cool shoulderless razor, should shave a treat!

Very nice job on a nimble looking little razor!
Well done sir..

Great job!

Wow-I admire your persistence. It looks like every step of that was a learning experience (if frustrating); we've all had that and continue to. It's getting rough when you get out the Jameson's, but a nice final outcome!

Very well done! I'm happy to hear the Shave went so well