Thread: My Fredrick Reynolds Barber's Notch Restore Project

I received this razor in a batch of six I won on Ebay. Admittedly it wasn't in that bad of shape when I got it. I think the scales were in the worst condition of the razor.
Any comments, tips, instruction on correcting something or how to improve an area are welcome.

Here is a before pic.

I really wanted to save the scales so I proceeded carefully. Once they were removed I cleaned them up first before proceeding to the blade. I soaked the scales overnight in a bath of water and Oxy-Clean; I think this is what put the curve in the scales as you can see from this picture so lesson learned. The Oxy-Clean works fine on vulcanite stems but not so fine on early scale material.

To fix this I used the method I use to bend pipe stems. I used my heat gun on low to carefully heat each scale to the pliable state then plunged it into an old ice cream bucket with about two inches of water and a dozen ice cubes and held it in the ice water until it had cooled to the shape I wanted. I tweaked each scale a few times until they were once again flat. The scales were so brittle that I cracked the pivot pin area on the right side. It splintered like what happens when you try and break a green tree branch. It splintered but didn't break. So I CA-ed it and held it firmly in place with a piece of shaped 1/8" dowel and then let it cure.
This picture is the start of the restore process and those that follow.

You can see the split area and the mess I made with the CA in the repair. I cleaned it up as best I could.





Blade centers OK

Thanks for looking.