Thread: The Marshian has landed!

"Nah, I'm pretty sure it's just a hundred years of honing the toe end more than the heel. I was just trying to come up with a positive spin on it."

Positive enough if it shaves well. Another workhorse in your string.

Bill Ellis restored a similar shaped razor for Joel over at B&B. It's sort of what inspired me to buy the Marshes in the first place.

Well that one seems to have been made that way unless Bill gave it a tweak. Certainly wouldn't be tip heavy. Strange beast indeed.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Well that one seems to have been made that way unless Bill gave it a tweak. Certainly wouldn't be tip heavy. Strange beast indeed.

Mine would seem that way too- the spine tapers evenly down towards the front, etc, etc. I can tell by the way the bevel was that is certainly was not designed that way, it was simply worn down, and I'd bet dollars to donuts the same is true of the Ramapo. Bill certainly gave it a fantastic re-finish, and I love the end result.

Wait a second, here's a pic of a Ramapo before the extreme hone wear set in. You can also see that Bill gave Joel's razor a complete re-grind as well. He doesn't mess around!

In the end, we are using a simple, sharp piece of steel to cut our whiskers. It doesn't really matter if the toe is narrower than the heel, or vice-versa. You could achieve the same result by simply holding the razor to your face a bit at an angle. Right?

Another Ramapo. So, I really don't think they came in strange shapes originally. Nor did mine.

By mine sure is strange shaped now!

Yeah I don't like getting my exercise by jumping to conclusions but I think that one of Joel's has met Bill's Burr King.
Think outside the box

OK, so now I know why this razor has been honed down so much......



It's a damn sweet shaver!


Really. True to its' heritage as a Sheffield wedge razor it is smooth and unstoppable.

The previuos owners over the past ~150 years must have got to the point where they were like

"Hmmm, methinks ye olde razor is looking a wee bit long in the tooth, I'm a wearin her down to a nub....perhaps it's time to retire her...

Well, let's just hone her up one more time for auld lang syne....."

"Damn! The ol' girl still has her stuff! Back in the rotation with ye, lassie!"

Wow is all I can say about this razor that I callously tossed in the back of the drawer with the discarded scales and worn out razor boxes. It holds its' own against any of my other razors. Very very nice. They don't make em like that anymore!

You cant judge a book by etc.etc.
Funny bout them Sheffields

In keeping with the transformationm from 19th century to 21st century razor, I put some shiny scales on the Marshian.

I also pretty much polished up the blade to mirror finish. It's not perfect, there's some remaining pitting and some higher grit scratches left over, but it's about 85% shiny Sheffield steel.

One of the reasons for polishing it, was stropping the razor with the 600 grit finish on the spine bevel felt horrible. There was very little feedback, it felt very "gritty" and it didn't seem like it was doing my strop any favors either. Hopefully the shine will help with all that....

I also made a slight modification to the very toe of the forked tip, as previously it had a very sharp radius up there, and that made using the tip very imprecise when going under the nose, or over by the ears.


This whole project was pretty much a seat of the pants affair, without a whole lot of time put into it, as I didn't expect much out of the razor. I hacked away at the spine with the dremel as I would not have shed any tears if that had ruined the blade.

Turns out this is now, quite surprisingly, a top performer in my stable! It looks wierd as all get-out, but shaves super-smooth and sharp.

P.S.- There's a warped Wapi sitting scorned and forlorn in my drawer that may take a trip to the shop sometime soon as well......