Thread: W&B Standard Wedge restore.

I got carried away a bit and never took before pictures and only managed to save a single one from the original listing (this was part of a lot I grabbed on eBay).



Literally, I took it out of the shipping box, looked at it, and stuck it on the drill press to start taking out the pins. And boy howdy, did I get a picture of that.



Wouldja look at that. If only I could so perfectly drill out pins all the time.

And then of course once I'd sanded and buffed and polished the kit & kaboodle, the original steel washers cracked when repinning and I had to use replicas. So, let that be an important lesson to you. That... uh... You can do everything right and things can still fail. (Hey, yeah, that even sounds like a good lesson!)

I'd never seen the plainest blade pattern from W&B in an 8/8 size. Surprisingly, it was a thicker grind than the early, wedge 'For Barber's Use' razors. A real healthy chunka razor. Enough so, that it had of course, cracked the scales on both sides at the wedge.

First I straightened the scales in my heat-vise, glued both cracks, then used a burr bit on my Dremel to gouge a runnel along the backside of the crack, on the inside of the scales. Those runnels I filled with horn dust and CA glue, then sanded them flat. They'll never open up again.

Then I dyed the scales black again, sanded and polished the blade and re-pinned with AJKenne's great replica washers.

Anyway, here's where I ended up:









It took a great edge, too!

Very nice Zak, another beauty saved.

Wow!! Nice [emoji122][emoji122][emoji122]


Camina solo y llegaras rápido , camina acompañado y llegarás más lejos...

What an amazing restore on that. Beautiful

Aloha Zak!

Great restoration on that fabulous W&B. My heart skips a beat every time I see such a gem restored to its former glory.

Mahalo for sharing this!

-Zip

Sometimes there are just no words. Well done sir.

great restore vm. truly a masterful job. well done. appreciate the details too. helped to understand all that goes into a restore 'behind the curtain'. thanks for sharing.

Magnum Bonum:



Magnum Bonum of a friend of mine:

https://instagram.com/p/BXhWqBLlAjd/
https://instagram.com/p/BVGxfChljw4/
https://instagram.com/p/BUFd9byFtAd/


Sure looks like one to me as well, great razor and a beautiful restoration!

Nice work, Zak. I appreciate your 'sympathetic' restorations (as Neil Miller would say!) in leaving a bit of patina and character as well as saving original components as-possible.

It is quite inspiring to see you get down to working on some of these beauties.
Seems things must be in order to find the time!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Nice work, Zak. I appreciate your 'sympathetic' restorations (as Neil Miller would say!) in leaving a bit of patina and character as well as saving original components as-possible.

It is quite inspiring to see you get down to working on some of these beauties.
Seems things must be in order to find the time!

Thanks Tom! That's high praise coming from you!

There were two things that precipitated me getting back to it.

1) Having my workshop fully set up and operational (which involved burning out the old motor on my drill press and replacing it)
2) Wanting to sell off some of my giant pile of 'to sell' items so I can afford a couple big-ticket toys.

But, well... I've now done significant restorations on 3 razors, and only one of them was to sell. I had sort of intended to sell both the Shepherd and the Roberts, but by the time I was done with them, I couldn't give'em up. It's a lot easier for me to part with Wade & Butcher razors since I've got a bunch of them!

And I've got a For Barber's Use to keep forever and ever as soon as I get around to making proper scales for it -- the originals were entirely missing the wedge end.

Now I just need to make a good dust collection system. The last time I took my bike out, once it was in direct sun (which doesn't happen at my house, as I live in a permanent fog zone), it had a fine layer of sparkly razor dust. Because I have apparently become the razor fairy, waving my magic (abrasive) wand and displacing a few milligrams of corroded steel.