Horror and Beauty.. 7/8 Rodgers Resto'd to original

Here is a 7/8 Joseph Rodgers with absolutely gorgeous original horn scales. These scales were horribly warped, and the warp caused the original partial crack @ wedge end which was promptly cracked the rest of the way by Lee..god bless him. Lee decided it would be a good idea to boil the whole blade too to straighten the scales. God bless him some more.

When I received the razor, it had some scratches on the blade, some pretty nasty chips along the edge (some still visible in these pics -- she just came off the 600grit hone just 2 minutes ago before i started posting this, they are gone now :D). the blade was in decent shape -- but the scales..oh my the scales.

they were in 3 pieces, and well, lets just let the pics do the talking:

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200...8%20-%2011.JPG

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200...8%20-%2010.JPG

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200....8%20-%209.JPG
Sooo...

The blade got a lot of time with some emery compound on the wheels, and the scales got 2 nights of frustration attempting to straighten...

After hair dryers and ovens.. i finally got them reasonable straight enough and not bouncing back after baking these suckers in a toaster oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes and then sticking my entire clamped contraption into my freezer overnight.

The result is scales that are NOT straight -- they wave a bit here and there..but..they do their job, and boy howdy are they stunners.

The crack is repaired by gluing the small piece onto the wedge, and then the rest of the scale is glued to the wedge and the small piece, clamped, glued with gorilla glue, and then used #0wide brass spacers to distribute force of the pin more evenly across the crack.

both scales got re-buffed out and are near mirrored. excess glue was sanded off around the crack area and buffed as well.

#0wide internal washers, #0wide external washers, 1/16" brass rod peened.

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200....8%20-%201.JPG

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200....8%20-%202.JPG

Couple more pics for those who didn't get enough.

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200....8%20-%203.JPG

http://www.straightrazoredge.com/200....8%20-%204.JPG

heres a pic while i was gluing.

http://www.adrian.edu/%7Ebmaggard/261.JPG

Excellent work as usually. Thank you for Pic.

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen the pics. Amazing what can be done with warped horn scales. Great job.

That is an accomplishment, my hat is off to you.

Wow this is great

This razor came by way of Dennis - his forum name escapes me at the moment [SliceOfLife], he lives down the street from randydance

I'm sure he will be as impressed as I am - moreso since I screwed up the resto myself. It seems to be my lot in razor life. That's ok though, I can certainly live with your result Brad ;)

Thanks, I can't wait to take her out for a shave!

God bless you for that restoration!

The blade is magnificent, and those scales are really something out of the ordinary for horn!


And God bless Lee too....:D

freaking unbelievable.

Great job!! What a transformation!!

fantastic post - My first reaction would have been to chuck those scales and just redo it with something new but you really have buffed a diamond out of what appeared to be a chunk of coal (at least through my eyes).

Simply great job.

Beautiful.... I'm glad you saved those, as they do not look to be buffalo...

I think those are an exotic african horn, and that makes them very old and very valuable/rare.

Beautiful work!

Very nice! I'll drink to that :beer1:

Well done, Brad! Thank you for preserving that beauty.

Looks nice. I am not partial to horn scales, and usually what I do is just rip them off (literally) and replace them with wood.
These ones came out really nice though. Is there any sort of guarantee that they will ermain sraight, or is there a risk of them bending again?

Very nice work polishing that bone :). Kudos for using the existing scales, which have very nice grain when polished.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Looks nice. I am not partial to horn scales, and usually what I do is just rip them off (literally) and replace them with wood.
These ones came out really nice though. Is there any sort of guarantee that they will ermain sraight, or is there a risk of them bending again?

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There is probably a risk. These scales wanted to become "U" shaped again every time I heated them up and let them cool.... until I stuck them in the freezer. I don't know if maybe extreme cold is the key to setting horn shape? I'm not sure. There is no information on the internet past "heat them up"

most of the stuff I've found online suggest letting them cool in the oven, but, my experience with that yielded terrible results. Hairdryers are good for a small correction, but, these scales were not ordinary.

I will keep an eye on them until it goes back to Lee -- and I'm sure he will be ever vigilant as well... I imagine if they do start to bounce back he'll immediately notice the blade sitting deeper. my suggestion to him at that point is to loosely clamp them together and hairdryer them. Hopefully he never has to do it..but..once every couple months 3 mins with a hairdryer.... would be worth it to keep these imo ;)

Send all horn scales to me....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Looks nice. I am not partial to horn scales, and usually what I do is just rip them off (literally) and replace them with wood.

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Looks excellent Brad! You really brought those scales back to life!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BKratchmer

I think those are an exotic african horn, and that makes them very old and very valuable/rare.

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I was wondering if anyone knew what kind of horn these are? the striations look interesting

Excellent work as always Brad, your resto's are getting better and better each time!

Excellent work Brad! :tu:tu You brought this one back forn the dead and beyond. :mexwave: My preference is to stay original if at all possible and you did an excellent job of doing just that! :rock:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

Send all horn scales to me....

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put me 2nd on the list.

That is simply excellent work!
I saw that razor when Dennis had it and really admired those scales. They look much better in person but you made them even better!:)

Well done & those scales were certainly worth the effort.
The layering effect is very like some tortoiseshell. Gorgeous.

Takes some serious skill to do that to what might have been mistaken as scales worth throwing in the bin. That thing is a work of art, really like that style of blade and the scales just make it a stunning piece.