Restored Shumate

I got this off Ebay for three bucks and change. It was pretty rusty, with some largish patches of red rust even, and had a couple of small chips in the edge, but not too awful bad. I actually took it to work and sand blasted the rust off with 50 micron aluminum oxide at about 60psi. Worked beautifully, totally cleared out all the rust and staining, but left out with a totally matte rough finish.

I used a few different rubber wheels in my dental handpiece to put a shine on it again, followed by some diamond paste on boar bristle brush and finally on a felt wheel for the final polish and to take the scratches out of the scales.

It came out nicely, though not as shiny as if I'd hand sanded it, but this only took about two hours all told. So there is the trade off.

This had a beautiful square point on it, almost a spike point, but sadly when I was putting my final polish on it I slipped and took a chip out of the last quarter inch of the edge. So after I finished cussing I ground out into a round point and rubbered that smooth again and polished it back. I'm still a little irritated about that slip up. I use that hand piece hours a day every day, no excuse for a slip like that.

At any rate, it came out nicely overall, despite my accident. There is still pitting in the areas where the really bad rust areas were, and it's not the absolute best possible shine I could have put on it, but it's not bad at all I don't think.


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I honed the chips out of it and got it shaving sharp my own self just this morning. That's the most work I've had to do on an edge in the small handful of razors I've worked on. It's only the second blade I've honed myself.

Shaved with it today, nice and smooth. No complaints. She's a good shaver and I'm feeling pretty accomplished today!

I think you'll find Shumates in general and Barber Deluxe in particular are just wonderful. I wish the 6/8 size wasn't so rare.

Nice job, thank you for sharing.

Very nice!
You've done yourself proud.

Great razors and yours looks lovely. Enjoy!

Thank you guys. I think next time I'll hand sand it before polishing rather than go straight to polishing after sandblasting. I like the results that way, but the sand blasting really works well for getting every bit of rust out!