Gold Scales on Joseph Elliot

[dirtychrome]

This is a Joseph Elliot's Best Silver Steel, Sheffield England. When I got this razor, the horn scales were shot. The blade face has “ROYAL” in a nice deep etch, that received a minor cleanup.

I see the name "Royal" and I think of Gold, Tradition and Elegance. So making scales out of gold seemed like the way to start.

I made scales with real gold flakes mixed with epoxy resin. Layering the gold slurry on top of brass liners, sanding to shape, and covering again in clear. Sanded and polished up from there.

The wedge is bone. It's nice and close to the blade when closing . I wanted the pinning to be the simplest possible, so its just brass with single washer, recessed a little.

When I was making this razor, I had left over slurry and made some stock for future wedges, including the one I posted here.

Thanks, and enjoy the pics. If wanted, many more pictures are also available here

[bknesal]

Wow. This is such an original idea, and it even turned out beautifully! Congratulations to you! I wish I had the time and creativity for things like this. Great scales sir!

[LegalBeagle]

Tremendous job! Very original, and you are correct, the gold does smack of Royalty!

[Joed]

Nicely done. It sure does have bling!

[colday]

WOW!! Very nice and creative!

[baldy]

Wow, now thats a transformation. Thats a really interesting process and very nicely executed, quite an achievement.

[spazola]

Great job on those scales. The whole razor looks super.

Charlie

[onimaru55]

Nice package for sure ! Did you use some kind of a form ?

[Hopper]

Amazing job with the epoxy... clear thru without any air bubbles that I can see!! Do you mind telling us how you did it? What kind of epoxy?

[dirtychrome]

Nice package for sure ! Did you use some kind of a form ?

First time I tried it that way, but didn't like that process, so scrapped those.

Amazing job with the epoxy... clear thru without any air bubbles that I can see!! Do you mind telling us how you did it? What kind of epoxy?

After the first sanding from the rough slurry, it was prickly with bubbles, but after sanding down, and a couple clear coats, there are not any bubbles left at all. Only downer on the covering is if held just the right (wrong?) way in bright light may see a sliver of the brass liner.

What I did here was make some liners from 1/16" brass sheet, cut to the traditional kidney bean shape. Next time I would use thinner stock.

I emptied four small tubes of gold flakes in to a plastic cup, and poured Parks Super Glaze into the flakes to make a slurry almost paste like. Then piled it on the roughed up liner faces.

After it cured, I shaped and thinned down on the belt sander. I found areas of clear where you could see through to the brass under it. I carved out those spots and reapplied more slurry. Next time, I would put gold leaf down first before slurry applied, to assure no clear pockets of epoxy to see the underlying brass. This probably would have saved me the second slurry application and reshape. I also would add spacers or stack some washers on top of the pinholes, (with the gold leaf over it so no brass shines through, to lessen puckering when pinned.

From there, it was shape it again, poured a clear coat, sand and polish to get true and flat, pour another clear, final sand and polish.

Waiting for the slurry to dry. You can also see a few tubes of the flakes at top right. You may also see, not a good idea to have fresh clear coat on a 2nd set while working with the gold. It catches air pretty easy, and may dust that other set of scales...opps.


After carving out some bald pockets. I could have saved this step, if I had gold leaf under the first slurry application. Got a little obsessive.


After final clear coat, prior to cleaning off rear of scales and final sanding/polish. Also wedge material that was made up with left over slurry.