Thread: A. Witte Gold Bug in progress.

Got a Gold Bug (A. Witte) off eBay this past weekend and it arrived yesterday, so I took a few pictures of the cleanup. The pins came out without problem and the scales are pretty much done now. I was thrilled with just how easily they cleaned up with Maas. All the blemishes are gone and they're nice and clear now.

The washers on the inside of the pivot (do they have a specific name?) were intact and just cruddy, and the wedge was discolored to various shades of brown and green. Since the scales are clear I wanted to clean up all the interior hardware, so I lightly sanded the wedge to get it white again and ran the washers across a paper towel with Maas to get them nice and shiny.

I scraped off some pivot crud from the razor with my fingernail, gave it a touch of Maas and then put it in my new tumbler. The bottom image is after about 12 hours in walnut media with Turtle Wax rubbing compound -- razor went back in until the weekend. I've been seriously considering a buffer so it might be a while before this is completed -- but I'm also terribly impatient and might just put it together with Microfasteners and hone it until I get all the buffer equipment.

Enough yapping. Here are two before pictures. One full blade and then a closeup of the pivot.





Here are the scales/washer/wedge after about 30 minutes of disassembly and cleanup, and the razor after 12 tumbling hours.



Can't wait to get this one finished!