Empire "Broadway Special" Solingen

Got in a purchase a while back, a "Broadway Special, made by Empire Cutlery in Solingen Germany. I got this razor on ebay with beautiful 3 pin scales, yellow plastic, "Broadway Special" made in Solingen Germany, that someone had really bore down on the honing in the front. As a result the 5/8 was good most of the way up until the 3/8 inch which tapered up toward the spine. It was kind of difficult to hone, so I cut the end off with Dremmel cut-off wheel, using soaking wet leather glove to hold on to the blade, and shortened it. Then I rounded the point. I honed it and shaves marvelous, but looked funny because the blade was shorter than the scales quite a bit. So, yesterday, I cut off the front of the scales, used 2 pieces of old 3 -1/4 floppy disc plastic, super-glued together, for the black middle, glued the small piece in place and reshaped the front end to round again. I put in a pin just for looks, and now it looks like it was made that way, nice shaped little razor, blade and scales 'n all. Shaved with it last night and it can really cut whiskers! I call it my "Midget". It's handy in that the razor blade and scales are not too long when working about the face. I mentioned old floppy disc as my black center part since I was looking for something to use as a black spacer, plastic, easy to work with, and little bird special.... cheap, cheap, cheap.. LOL Kind of a "MacGyver" sort of thing.

Pops hairs like a charm! Really a very easy razor to shave with, even though it is not full size. Maybe ladies that use straights under the arm would find this.... useful.

http://vernsdidj.com/pictures/misc/r...ySpecial_L.jpg

http://vernsdidj.com/pictures/misc/r...ySpecial_R.jpg

And, one image of what it looked like before. I did not like the way the smile went up so abruptly. If I were to "flatten" the entire edge I would have lost a lot of width toward the center and back just to even up with the front. For a $9.50 razor, and "mine" which I have no intentions of selling, I figured "Why not?".

http://vernsdidj.com/pictures/misc/r...pecial_OLD.jpg

Before Feb. 10th of this year I never owned or even held a straight razor. Kind of a Razor Addiction Disease I've been told. I'm a newbie, but I get though shaves pretty quickly, no nicks or cuts, and since I have become better at honing, ALL of the razors in the one drawer are able to be stropped and shaved with, even the old time 1854 (est.) Ramapo Co.

Really, though, this razor, even shorter, is a good "Solingen" made razor and one heck-of-a shaver all unto itself. How many really use the "whole" of the length of a razor anyway?

Gibbs

I had a similar problem with an Otto Deutsch blade and cut one inch off the point.

You did a great job on yours.

They're really nice shavers, aren't they Jerry? Sometimes one doesn't realize that you don't use that whol lenght of the blade when you are shaving. I have another razor, a Mulcuto that had a chip out the blade in the heel area and I cut the whole heel down and rounded it a bit for non-cutting. It gave me a front blade that did cut and that Mulcuto Lifelong is a great little trimmer blade AND if you factor in that it does not cut as much of a swath, it shaves with the least amount of drag (except for this one) of all the razors I have. I like short razors and I like 5/8 for size. I have a J.A. Henckels that is only about a 3/8 that I probably will sell someday. Handy for around the nose, really bright clean blade but I just am not a fan of very small or very large blades on a razor. I think 6/8 is about the tops for me.

Looks like it was made that way! Very nice job!