Thread: First restoration: Simmons Hardware #421 Barber's Pet

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am pleased to announce the completion of my first, humble, complete restoration. This has been a long, learning journey (as many of you may know) done entirely my hand sanding.

I bought this razor for $8, a total rust-bucket, on June 20th. I didn't think much of it, and figured it would be a 'learning' item while I waited for a lot of "real" blades to get here.

Two months of handsanding, love, sweat, and tears later, she's a new beauty...in my eyes. I'm sorry to say I have no photo of it "before", since I discounted it at the starting gun. Learned my lesson, I guess.

Anyhow, it also balances at the tang, and I'll take a picture to prove it if y'all want.

Very nice, BK. I am very much in the beginner's class and this shows what can be achieved by others who are fresh to the journey. I would be interested to hear of your grit progression; I've been missing out some of the grades with no obvious drawbacks but I have some way to go at the top end.

Congratulations on a fine result.

Dude ! Nice Job , Nice razor. Your efforts are reflected in your results.

And now you deserve a

Stunning work. I have 2 of these myself. One is in my regular rotation and i have to say its my favorite. The other just arrived in the mail last week and is awaiting restoration. Enjoy.
G.

Nice work, she looks nice

Very nice Ben! Well done!

Thanks to all for taking time to look at this; your comments and critiques are much appreciated.

Lordjohn: For this razor I used something like 80-100-120-150-180-220-320-400-600-800-1000-2000

If I could change anything, I would add 500 and 1500, because I wound up removing a lot of crud at 600 that was invisible until a finer finish. 1000 meshes was just a HUGE jump at the end (although very doable) so a 1500 would be nice. For any specific questions about my technique, I'll have a blog post about this later tonight. (after work...)

Or just PM Max or Glen... I'm just grabbing after the hems of the gods of the restoration Pantheon here. They know everything.

Onimaru- It has felt like after putting on a play, or the death of a loved one: You're there, but not sure where to go next. I think a bacchanal would be about the perfect fix. Or restoring another razor....

Baldy- I'm glad to hear you like your Barber's Pet! When I bought it I had never heard of one, thought it sounded hokey, and didn't connect Simmons and Keen Kutter, so I wasn't sure hoe it would be. I look forward to having this honed and giving it a try!

Deryan + JimR- Thanks! Your opinion means a lot!

What a great finish you've achieved! That must've taken some work. You've got more patience than i have. It centres well too! I'd be pleased with that one!

Nice tight work, and no doubt a lot of it....

I don't know about Max, but I do know that is exactly how I started restoring razors "By Hand" long hours of aching hands

But look what you did man, you actually just saved a piece of history, and made it useful again.... You deserve to be very proud, great job....


ps: (I forget the stupid before pics too)

It seems we ALL tend to forget those stupid before pics. Even after all those restores. hahahahaha

The G made me flash back to my earlier days. Like my brother said, lots of sweat with very basic tools. A copping saw, some sandpaper and a hammer. But although I have a shop filled with all the power tools needed I still spend countless hours hand sanding and finishing my scales. Especially the synthetics . Basically to get to a high quality finihed product you need patience, hand work and lots of love.

You should be immensely proud of yourself. Your first restored razor will always be one you'll remember.