Thread: Engström: Resurrection

Quite a while ago I got a John Engström frameback with ivory scales.

It was rusty, chipped and it looked like someone tried to clean the ivory with a fist-full of beach sand hammered into plywood. I was excited to work on it. So excited that I disassembled it within a minute of opening the eBay package.

This promptly snapped the scales at the toe.

Dejected, I put it away in my tool box and tried not to think about it.

Every now and then I'd try sanding some of the tarnish off the frame, but it was weirdly resistant to sanding.

I gave up.

Fast forward about a year and now I've got a new workbench installed in the garage with proper shop lighting, all my tools are organized and I have an arsenal of sandpaper and polishing equipment.

I never got any before pictures of this razor, but here's what I was able to do to it with a bit of elbow grease.



There were two bad dings in the blade that I ground out, which is why the shape is a tiny bit odd. The main thing I discovered is that sanding a frameback is hard work. There are so many fidgety little spaces that are incredibly easy to miss. In the picture above you can just see where the ivory snapped at the toe pin. A bit of CA glue and all was well there.



I'm only partially happy with the polish on the blade. I really need to stop screwing around and make myself a sanding jig so I can get steady, light and even pressure when sanding.



Other than the pins, it's all original parts.



A macro lens is a valuable tool for finding EVERY TINY THING YOU MISSED.



I'm sad that the ivory lost its patina, but there was nothing for it. Whoever had cleaned it left deep scratches that looked terrible. Like a cat had used it as a scratching post. Now it looks very shiny and clean, but also 'new'.



I don't consider the restore to be a full success, but it was an excellent way of breaking in the new workspace!