Geo Savage & Sons

Here's a George Savage I recently picked up. There is no marking on the metal to verify, but the scales fit the blade perfectly and they seemed original as far as I could tell while unpinning and cleaning them up.

Blade is a heavy near-wedge with notches all around. Scales are pressed horn. The front side says GEO SAVAGE & SONS | NORWICH PLACE SHEFFIELD while the back side says SOLE MANUFACTURERS OF | THE DOUBLE X RAZORS. The wedge was some sort of metal (lead?) that was all fuzzy and crumbled like clay when I unpinned. The horn was bowing out away from the wedge and the blade was dirty and had a few spots of heavy pitting, all well away from the edge.

Unpinned carefully, noticed a crack on the back scale around the wedge pinhole so I applied some CA on the inside for some extra support. Soaked in mineral oil for a day and straightened them a bit with hot air. Used my buffer on the razor (my second venture!) with pretty good results. Filled the oversized pivot hole with epoxy and redrilled when dry. Made the new wedge from pearl acrylic and went with nickel/SS pins -- I really love that contrast with the scales.

Going to try honing it this weekend. I was going to wait to post pictures but Dylan really got me excited with his remarks in a razor club thread about how rare Savages were. Enough chatter, here are three before pics and three after pics. Comments always welcome!

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...-sheffield.jpg

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...e-x-razors.jpg

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...vage-wedge.jpg

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...tore-front.jpg

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...store-back.jpg

http://straightrazorpalace.com/membe...tore-wedge.jpg

Cleaned up Real good. At first sight I thought what the heck is that a leather sueded leather wedge on that razor. Of corse I read the post to see what it was.

Is that the same blade you had on your counter when i gave you my Shumate? If it is it cleaned up nice. Tell me how it shaves.

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Originally Posted by prosneek

Is that the same blade you had on your counter when i gave you my Shumate? If it is it cleaned up nice. Tell me how it shaves.

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Yep, that's the one you saw. Might try honing it tonight -- I'm getting impatient. :)

That's a nice lookin razor now. Nice work.

Scrubbed up nicely. Just love authentic restores but the acrylic wedge works too :)

Very nice. These are some of my favorites.

Very Nicely done!

Great Job!

Lu

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Scrubbed up nicely. Just love authentic restores but the acrylic wedge works too :)

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My thoughts exactly. I really took a while to decide upon the SS/nickel combo. Brass/brass would have looked more original, but in the end I'm a real sucker for the minimalistic look of dark scales, shiny razor, shiny pins.

In the third picture where I was trying to show the grind, you can see the original wedge towards the bottom. Gandrw had a perfect description saying that it looked like suede/leather and as soon as I tried to rub some of that stuff off to see if it would clean up, a chunk broke off so I knew I couldn't reuse it. I'd still like to know if anyone can comment on whether that's a property of lead or another material.

Ideally I would have used some sort of metal for the wedge like originally, but I don't have the materials and the acrylic is easy to shape. But I'm thrilled that the scales were in great shape to start and cleaned up nicely! Thanks to all for the comments.

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Originally Posted by commiecat

I'd still like to know if anyone can comment on whether that's a property of lead or another material.

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Alkaline conditions can cause that kind of corrosion on lead.
I wonder if a fairly strong soap was used in cleaning the razor or possibly even as a shave soap and it was stored with an alkaline residue on it?

Just as a side note. I think these wedges are pewter, which contains lead but on its own lead may be too soft.