Thread: W&B Hollow ground revamp

I bought this W&B from an antique shop for around $10. As seen in the before pics, someone had rounded off the end (very poorly); blade had some large rust spots and mild pitting and staining. The scales, while in decent shape, were stained / discoloured, and somewhat ugly.

For the blade:
Using a dremel with a cut off bit, I removed about 1/8" to get rid of the horrible "point" leaving a square point. The spine where it meets the toe was rounded off in an attempt to match the original lines.

I ran through a progression of 120 grit to 2000 grit (using a dremel for grits up to 600, and hand sanding for everything higher) to get rid of rust and much of the pitting (I wasn't even attempting a perfect finish) then hand polished with some Maas.

After rough shaping using a coping saw, I hand sanded the scales (Honduras rosewood) and wedge (cocobola) to the final size and shape, finishing with 2000 grit for a very smooth feel. Finish is around 8 coats of tung oil. This was my second set of scales that I made. First time around, while I was happy with them, I found them clunky. I spend quite a bit more time on this set.

Pins are brass with single washer. This is the first time I've attempted to pein pins (prior I was using micro fasteners). The blade had a twist in it which caused it to hit the scales. I added an extra pivot washer to push the blade back over and create the illusion of centering.

Before:







After:










Thanks to all who have posted their restores and tips which were a huge help.

Constructive criticism always welcome!

cheers,

Rick

Couple more pics of the new blade shape and pinning

Very nice work, always impressed in seeing the before and after pics of what folks are able to do with razors that others had written off.

Joe

Very nice!

So far, I prefer round points to square points, but I think you did a wonderful job reshaping the toe of that blade. Looks like original manufacture to me.

Hand tools only on the scales? I'm impressed! Nice pins too.

A nice return on a $10 investment. Keep up the good work!

That is an impressive job! I can't imagine using my dremel tool to cut a nice end like that! Or making scales half so nice with hand tools!

Awesome work!

Nice looking scales, nicely balanced, smooth transitions in the curves.

After a couple more you'll look back and see that the peening needs a little more work. The best thing is to polish up the peened heads to get rid of the slight hammer mark.
A small thing, but overall quite nice. Keep at it.

Mark

Fantastic work, Rick!

X

Nice save & good job on the reshaping.

great job! i'm happy to see other people having luck freshening up their razors. i have a torrey i'm going to be working on starting tomorrow.

Very Nice work! Do you give classes on reshaping the blades? Cause I could sure use a few! Great Pics! Keep em coming!