W & B The Celebrated Hollow Ground Razor restoration

I put this together for a new member.
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Dressed in black buffalo with lead wedge and brass pins and collars.It was originally in mottled horn which needed a lot of work. I decided to put it in this black horn set that I made for a VR razor modeled from the scales for this one because I lost the scales for it (VR). Fortunately I found the originals and these were languishing. This one was pretty rough when I got it and needed a painstaking regrind (as to not remove the engraving on the face) to fix a spine with wide hone wear and a rough, wide and pitted bevel.
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Unfortunately I somehow ended up with no pics of the back side where the worst was.
Honed with a 1k, 4k, 8k progression with a black Ark finish and Coti microbevel

Nice work, Paul:tu

Interesting way to finish the honing - black ark followed by a coti. I’d like to hear why you chose to do it that way.

Because the black can be a little...:confused:...crisp for some people. I added 2 layers of tape and gave it 5 dry strokes on the coti to mellow it a little plus a microbevel should make it more durable.

Shaved like butter. I love the shave from those big wide old Sheffield razors.

My experience is that those Sheffields seem to really like being finished on a coticule.

Never thought about it that way but I do often use a coti on the heavy wedge blades even though I normally prefer a black to just about anything. Although I have been playing around with coti slurry on a black. Makes for some interesting edge opportunities.