Thread: Ford & Medley destined for the bin

This Ford & Medley is one of four Sheffield razors I acquired with the early F. Fenney I posted about a few weeks back. Given the major chips and splits in the blade as well as the heavy rust, my plan was to bin the blade and use the scales for one of the other four that needs them. When I took the scales off, I realised they would not be suitable for the other razor, so I thought I'd have a go at restoring it (never dealt with chips this bad, so I considered it a useful learning experience). I'm quite happy with the result.

The blade still looks (just about) aesthetically balanced, despite the major bread-knife grinding required. It took a good bit of honing to bring it back from butter-knife blunt to to shave-ready, but I've tried it and, like all vintage Sheffields I've used, it gives a very comfortable smooth shave. It's the newest of the razors I got in the job lot, I think dating to around the First World War. The other three are all pre-1850 (more on those as I finish them) Scales are original celluloid...each with the number 120 embossed on the inside (a part number?). Before and after pics below.

Good that you saved the old razor from the scrap heap. I shaved with a Ford & Medley razor just today, lovely razors

At one stage I had over 200 Ford & Medley razors in for restoration, a batch of blades was found and I restored and polished them like I how could forget 200 blades It was like groundhog day for a few weeks.

Originally Posted by celticcrusader

At one stage I had over 200 Ford & Medley razors in for restoration, a batch of blades was found and I restored and polished them like I could forget 200 blades It was like groundhog day for a few weeks.

I remember reading about those Jamie, someone from the company stored the blades in their garage when the firm closed down about 1930.
No one seems to know who Mr Ford was, Albert Medley was the other name in the business.

Originally Posted by 782sirbrian

I remember reading about those Jamie, someone from the company stored the blades in their garage when the firm closed down about 1930.
No one seems to know who Mr Ford was, Albert Medley was the other name in the business.

That's right Brian someone from Ford & Medley stored them in the garage, I was sent batches of 50 or more some of them were in great condition some just went into the bin, mostly though they were good.

Nice save! Looks like it may still benefit from some heel reshaping.

thats interesting jamie i must have got one of those about 8 years ago a 333 f&m from the invisible edge who had that story on their site unfortunately for me it and my other razors got taken to the dump by accident when i moved last month

Nice save, hard to beleive something so damaged coudl come out so nice.

Nicely done. If not for the before pics, I wouldn't have realized how bad off it had been.

Nice save.!
As said, a reshape of the heel, and maybe thin the stabilizer near the edge, should make it like new, again.