Thread: Parkin Cast Steel restoration

I've had this razor for a few years waiting for the right time to restore it. An oldie! It was badly pitted, especially on the back side. The scales were in good shape so I was able to keep them. Even though they look black in the pictures, when held to the light they're dark honey. The collars had turned to flakey rust and pretty much crumbled when disassembling. I used replica collars and brass pins to put it back together. I also added very thin washers inside the pivot to limit further wear against the inside surface of the scales. This restoration was done by hand aside from a few minutes at the end I used a dremel and wool wheel with lapping paste to polish the 3000 grit sandpaper haze out of the spine, tang and tail.

The geometry of the blade is pretty cool. When looking down on the spine from above you can see the whole thing is shaped like a long, slight wedge from tail to tip. From the side you can see the blade is narrow at the heel and wider at the end. Because the width of the spine increases as the blade width increases, the bevel remains even throughout the entire edge.

I measured the spine width to blade width ratio at the heel and at the end (in inches).
Heel: 0.154/0.579 = 0.266
End: 0.213/0.795 = 0.268
Almost exact! I thought that was pretty cool.

The only info I have on this razor is that it might be made by Staniforth, Parkin & Co. from Sheffield, probably c. 1790-1810. The tang stamp is a down pointing arrow, a sideways L, PARKIN, and CAST STEEL. Glad to have this one in my collection. Thanks for looking!

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