Thread: Boker "Our Own Hollow Ground Razor"

Well, this one will probably be the last one I do for the summer as I get sucked deeper into my new job responsibilities. It's a Boker "Our Own Hollow Ground Razor" (engraved on the blade face) that I got in a blade lot from Oz on our BST. Though I kept the original scales and box for posterity, I liked the idea of this one in horn scales with brass wedge and pins. It's also the one I posted about in the Workshop thread that had (has, really) so much black devil's spit tarnish. Again, I was reluctant to sand on an engraved, roughly quarter-hollow ground blade with what I knew would be deep pitting beneath those black spots. So I just got real aggressive with Mother's, then 3M Marine Metal Restorer (thanks Mike/Outback!), and buffing on a progression of cotton wheels with Fabuluster. I got rid of most of the tarnish and shined it up quite a bit, but with some character marks left intact:

A couple of points:
-Those aren't divots on the front of my wedge. It's mirror polished. I'm just a lousy photographer-maybe dust flecks, I don't know.
-Scales are still a wee-bit thick at about .125, but now that my machinist son gave me some digital calipers I can measure everything and get closer. They flex fine, though, and feel proportionate to this beefy, spine-heavy blade.
-This is my 2nd straight set of horn scales in which prominent feathering mostly "disappeared" (even though I flatted and thicknessed them from the backs of the blanks and did minimal shaping and polishing on the front, "feathered" side). I guess horn and other natural materials are just like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates.
-1st time I used brass pins. They seemed MUCH softer and easier to mushroom and fine-tune the pinning on than NiAg. Anybody else have this experience?

Anyway, I set the bevel on my Chosera 1k and smoothed it out on my Norton 4k, and followed up with a progression on my vintage shell strops just to see where we're at. I will probably shave with it this evening before moving up and finishing. Aaron/SHD

Nicely done Aaron!