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My two first cleanups: 5/8 Landers, Frary & Clark and 5/8 Carnos
Two weeks ago, I happened across there two razors in the antiques store for under $10 each. They are:
1. 5/8 quarter hollow Landers, Frary & Clark, "Warranted", New Britain, Conn, USA with 1916 dates stamp
2. 5/8 Half Hollow (or more) Carnos Regd. No. 425384 'Best Silver Steel', Germany
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I hand sanded both starting with 150-grit, and working my way up to 1500 grit at the top end. I then polished them up with Blue Magic metal polish, after reading Max recommending it in several threads on the forum. The scales on both razors were sanded with 1500 grit paper, then gone over with Blue Magic as well. I left the scales on for these as peening is a job for another day. Total time spent sanding and polishing was approximately 12 hours per razor.
The LFC was worked on first. The front turned out reasonably well, although I left a few deeper pits on the front of the blade towards the toe. While I am sure the pits could be removed, these specific ones would have taken quite a bit longer with the sandpaper than I was interested in spending. The back of the blade has some minor pitting as well, but is in similar condition to the front.
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Once the LFC was finished, I moved on to the Carnos. I feel that the Carnos turned out excellent; even better than the LFC. I did leave some pitting on the front of the blade near the toe as I had sanded heavily on the rest of the blade, and felt that leaving a little extra material on the nose might lend some strength if I had accidentally over-sanded and weakened the middle. The back of the blade has some light pitting left. After having sanded the front extremely clean, I was a bit hesitant about oversanding the back; being somewhere between a quarter hollow and full hollow, I did not want to weaken the blade any more than I already might have. Perhaps that is being overly cautious, but that's me... I also left some minor pits on the hone wear near the toe. The razor has been honed a little heavier towards the toe in the past, so I did not want to remove any more metal there; I imagine that will smooth out a little once honed.
The Carnos also had a small problem where the scales had warped a little, and the blade would enter the scales far enough the the razor would be poking out the bottom slightly, waiting for an innocent set of fingers. I solved this by placing a small drop of wood glue between the scales near the toe, which dried very hard and clear. The blade now rests against this drop of glue, preventing it from dropping in far enough to poke out the bottom. The drop is nearly invisible, and can only be seen when looking through the scales (and even then, it's hard to find...)
On a side note, does anyone know anything about this 'Carnos' mark? I can only find reference to one or two other razors online with this mark.
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Within the next week or so, I'll be sending these off to be honed. I realize this whole razor business is going to become quite addictive. I haven't even had my first straight shave yet due to the razor I ordered being caught in our postal strike. However, cleaning up these old razors is an enjoyable (albeit tedious) task.
Edit: The 'after' pics didn't come out as sharp as I was hoping. I may try to take and upload better ones later. Anyone have suggestions about how to photograph razors well?
