Friodur with Mother of Pearl on blue g10 liners

Here's a Friodur with some beautiful scalloped spine work. 8/8 with a round point.

Raw Mother of Pearl shell polished and cut to shape. Liners are blue 1/16" g10. Sealed and bonded together with System3 MirrorCoat.

Bone wedge, nickle rods, triple brass-stainless-brass washers.

The owner said he liked the idea of making it look like an iceberg. The colors of the MOP is different pending what angle or light you hold it at. With the blue liners adding some tint, and as background color I think it came together well towards that. Please pardon so many images, trying to demo color changes, and show off that spine :-)

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Many more full resolution images available here
Blue MOP Friodur
Some additional razor detail available here.
http://straightrazors.me/topcat/Friodur_Blue_MOP.html

Stunning! Very nice!

Wow! O_O Just ... wow!

that's some bling :)

i think the borders betwen the separate pieces of mop add a lot to the 'iceberg'. single pieces or different angles wouldn't have worked that well

great job!

Another great rescale Walt!!! I love the blue liners, the whole thing looks flawless.

That looks stunning! How hard is the MOP pieces to work with?

That falls in the "awesome" category. Really stellar.

That's truly beautiful, great work!

Walt,
This is another example of your fine work :bow. Well done. I love it :tu.

Congratulations to the new owner as well.

That is absolutely beautiful.

Awesome lookiing MOP and I really like the blue.

Very nice!!!

That is some fine craftsmanship!!

Normally MOP doesn't speak to me. This one does, great job.

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Originally Posted by Harvitz81

That looks stunning! How hard is the MOP pieces to work with?

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It's not so much as hard as taking time. This Friodur was done in White MOP solid raw shell.
Here is a pic of raw Gold Lip MOP shell I use.
http://straightrazors.me/str8pics/shell/goldmopraw.jpg
The white is of similar size.

Shell veneer also seems to work well. Veneer is less expensive and many interesting varieties of it. I'll post some images of scales I'm finishing that way later this week. They need final polishing, but I wont be around for a few days. The veneer is thinner, so background color shows through more. It would be more like what Masecraft offers. The veneers do not require sanding to the front like raw shell does. It is also lighter and flexible and better for smaller/lighter blades when use a thinner liner.

I sand the raw shell pieces to 400 on greaseless. Again, veneer doesn't need to do this sanding. Of course wear a respirator. I imagine the shell dust is like glass powder if inhaled. Get ready for a horrible smell. Like an unattended men's room urinal. You'll look forward to the smell of horn, lol.

After sanding on the show side, I cut the panels on a dremmel with thin cut ezlock discs. I'll pay attention to grain direction, and any irregular color. The sides that butt together I bring straight and parallel on the belt sander to my desired angle. The sides/edges I don't much worry about since they will be sanded off during shaping.

You get a feel for that looking here
http://straightrazors.me/str8pics/sh...pfirstcoat.jpg

I'll then rough cut some g10 liners. Solid, raw shell I go a little under 1/16". Shell veneer liners 1/32". Inboard left shinny. Outboard to 220.

Wipe down with acetone, dry in temp/dust control area. Rubber cement liners down to some graph paper to help keep all square when panels placed down and keep epoxy from coating soon to be inboard side of scales. Mix System3 MirrorCoat. Pour clear epoxy resin over the livers. Position panels on top of that layer of clear. Pour some clear over that. Pay attention if panels shift over next half to full hour. The weight of solid shell may be ok to displace any excessive epoxy between liner and shell as panels manipulated. Veneer wont. It needs to be lightly squeegeed down with light pressure and may curl up. You might need to tack the edges down for the veneer use. Few days of drying, coat and dry a few more times. From there shape and finish sand as normal.

I think that about sums it up.

OMG..... can i say it again??? OMG!!!!

simply stunning!! I'd love to see that reflection off a heavy mirror wedge, maybe with a notch also. The blue really gives it depth! Can I put in an order now????

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Originally Posted by Str8Shooter

...I'd love to see that reflection off a heavy mirror wedge, maybe with a notch also. The blue really gives it depth!...

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I didnt notice the blue on the closed blade until just now. At first I thought it was the blue tape that I used to cover the blade while I was working on it. Forgot it was on there when I first started taking pics of the closed blade.

Just now grabbed the razor and it is a true and natural reflection. Kind of amazed myself since it has the factory striations that is satin, not a mirror finish

I still say one of the hardest parts is taking pictures of the work, lol

Soooo Iceeee ! I reckon frostbite is a real risk :)
Beautiful work sir.

As the man said "Double U Oh Double U" I am duly impressed!!

Congradulations!!

Walt, i'm amazed...all expectations exceeded! Just thanks for your hard work and creativity that produced this truly beautiful result!

I saved your photos to my file; just to look at and have an example of a beautiful razor.

that is one of the nicest razors I have seen. Nothing not to like about it. Great blade, spine is stunning and the scales are absolutely gorgeous. Any chance of it needing to be adopted?

Wow really nice... How's the weight with the MOP?

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Originally Posted by thehekler

Wow really nice... How's the weight with the MOP?

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Seems ok. It balances just at the rear of the scales behind the pivot.

Thanks for the explanation dirtychrome. Maybe someday I'll have to try this.

Stunning, DC. Again. (and again...)

Now that looks cool - nice touch!

Wowsers! That turned out amazingly beautiful! I think "Iceberg" is definitely an accurate description.

Awesome work, that is the nicest spine work I've seen on a Friodur and the scales compliment the blade perfectly IMO

Simply stunning, Walt-the flawless spine-work, the play of light on the MOP scales, almost glows like opal.

To my family's chagrin, every computer in the house now sports some beautiful razor as a desktop background; they change often with so many beauties posted on here. My ultimate compliment, often as not it's one of yours. Thanks again for the desktop background! Aaron

All I can say is you have elevated your mop skills to a new level, Walt. I appreciate your sharing techniques and procedures as well!
Good guys make Good razors! Now is the spine work your doing as well? I simply LOVE this one! Congratulations !

Shes a beaut! Very nice work.

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

... is the spine work your doing as well?

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Sorry slow reply, wasn't near a connection for a bit.

No, the steel is how it came to me. Other than sleeving the pivot, I didn't touch this blade.

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Originally Posted by Scipio

Excellent work, I am a big fan of genuine MOP. Why the owner wanted it to look like an iceberg is beyond me, and amongst the list of things I deem it to resemble, an iceberg is not one of them - to me it looks like a very handsomely scaled razor! You never know, looks might just be the tip of the iceberg!

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The above quote is from below...this last post was fresh enough to edit, so figured I'd reply here, rather than reply fresh and bump to the top of forum.

This MOP technique requires some sort of liner, and clear on top of that. As we discussed liner color choices, the owner liked the blue liners because it reminds him of an iceberg, something in nature he admires. I likely over simplified with the quote 'like an iceberg'.

I actually started to throw out more obvious ideas to make it more iceberg like. Such as cutting the panels in a more extreme, or differing directions, placing some sort of inlay under the clear, etc to make a more obvious theme. Thankfully he reeled me in, wanting a clean simple look. He was happy with the idea of the raked MOP panels and blue/white color to be reminiscent of a berg, not looking so much for a theme razor.

I now see how my comment 'like an iceberg' when I started the thread might be misleading, sorry, wasn't my intention

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Soooo Iceeee !...

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omimaru55 may have provided a better, short description for me

Another great one. you always come up with such cool and unusual razors.

Excellent work, I am a big fan of genuine MOP. Why the owner wanted it to look like an iceberg is beyond me, and amongst the list of things I deem it to resemble, an iceberg is not one of them - to me it looks like a very handsomely scaled razor! You never know, looks might just be the tip of the iceberg!

Beautiful Fridour....even prettier scales. A work of art as always walt.

Gorgeous restore, well done!

Wow. DC, your work is just wonderful. I love seeing each one. This is just beautiful.

Very nice work! and IMO no such thing as too many images of great work.

Beautiful,that says it.