Thread: Heavy Pitted Hand Sanded Boker

So this is my first kick at the can of Restoration. This is the first SR I bought form a Flea market and it was totally rust covered at the time. If i had any idea about the time involved in cleaning it up i think i would of left it in the pile of junk. But im going to bring this one back to life after all its my first SR.
At this point im into it about 5hrs with the 80grit. So here are some pics of my progress.

Good one, and so far good job. In the end you should have a
fine shaver that will give you years of service. Bokers can
prove to be winners.

Dont sand it to far. That pitting will probably not all come out. With a hollow grind, if you sand on it to much, you will thin the blade to much and it will start to flex and bow. At that point, it is pretty much ruined.

I have a Boker that literally has pits (hell, they're holes) that extend all the way through the blade. Yup, I can see right through holes in the blade. They are located half-way between the edge and the spine. Put it this way, I didn't know it was a Boker, nor did I know it was one with the St. Louis steamer etching on it, until I started scraping away at the rust.
You know what?
It's still a great shaver!

Cannonfodder has a point....
I had one with heavy pitting like that as well and sanded too deeply. I think it's part of a Chevy now. Had to scrap it and was really unhappy that I had put so much effort into it just to end up junking it. Good effort with the blade...

Originally Posted by cannonfodder

Dont sand it to far. That pitting will probably not all come out. With a hollow grind, if you sand on it to much, you will thin the blade to much and it will start to flex and bow. At that point, it is pretty much ruined.

Well I have taken too much off. Those where some deep pits. Guess you live and you learn. Next time if there this deep i'll just go for shining it up.

Thanks you for the input guys.

Being fond of US steel, I bought an Ontario w/ nice bolster. Crud was on it, but no active rust. When I sanded & cleaned up the pitting was WAY worse than I'd hoped. I thought I'd hone it for the practice, being a noob. I've shaved w/ it 4x now, and even though there are pits in the bevel it shaves dang well. The pits include vertical etches that mean even further metal removal will not eliminate chips in the bevel - and yet it shaves well. I thought that wasn't possible, or I'm too inexperienced to detect the flaws in the shave - but it's not bad at all.

Originally Posted by TrilliumLT

Well I have taken too much off. Those where some deep pits. Guess you live and you learn. Next time if there this deep i'll just go for shining it up.

Thanks you for the input guys.

Is that one of the famous "swiss boker tree razor" that I see.

When sanding it is a very good idea to get down to bright
steel for sanitary reasons. Once you get the rust out
switch to finer then finer yet paper and smooth all the
deep scratches out, again for sanitary reasons. There
is no pressing need for a fine polish and with a nice satin finish
further polish can be obtained over the next year with small applications
of MAAS or Simichome metal polish one a week or so.

As long as the pits do not damage the shaving edge a razor
can have an astounding amount of pitting and still shave
like a champ.

Mine is worse than that. Hone and and shave with it. It's more ventilated this way and it will shave just fine!

Does the blade whistle when you strop it real fast????????????????????