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Koch & Rau Restore, My First
My second attempt at a restore. The first attempt being polishing and pinning a blade with to many pits along the edge to salvage. This blade is a Koch & Rau 5/8s, silver steel from the 20's or 30's, thanks to Neil Miller for the ID. Some pitting on the spine that I left as I didn't want it to effect the honing. It was pretty clean to begin with but it really shone once it came out of the tumbler. I actually wanted to use a different blade that had been cleaned and polished only to discover that the pivot hole in the first would need a sleeve so I used the blade that was handy.
I'm limited to an apartment workshop so most of the work is done at the kitchen table or if it's dusty, in front of a window fan. I started with a piece of 3/8"x 2" red oak slat from Home Depot. No sense in messing up something expensive at this point. Jig sawed a pair of scales and them double sticked (stuck?) them together. Using an orbital palm sander I shaped, formed and thinned the scales to about 3/32". Hand sanded them up to 2000k and them broke them apart. I decided on a CA finish so I coated the inside first and after that coat dried, attached them to my little scale stand by putting a couple of pieces of gaffers tape on the finished side of the scale as I knew that would peel off without pulling the CA off. Then I put foam tape on the screw heads and lined the gaffers up to the foam.
15 coats of CA and a day and a half later, I started the sanding process which proved to be quite an exercise in frustration. Shiny hills and dull valleys for another half day. Gave up on getting a mirror polish until the next one, settled for what I got with this one.
The wedge was salvaged from a broken set of scales and glued and pinned in place. Sanded the scale to size and started with the CA in that area. It made a bit of a mess but now I just wanted to finish it.
Pinning was interesting. I got to a point where I had peened both ends of the brass rod but soon figured out that I had a bit to much rod. Not wanting to file off the pin and start over, I just tapped away until the blade got fairly tight in the scales. I'll probably redo that.
All in all, I'm pleased. I honed it and got a good shave with it this morning which is all that really matters.
It will never be Prom Queen but I'll always remember it as my first.
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This is the stand for doing the CA. Foam tape stuck pretty well. Thanks to Glenn with the help on the drying time. I had a question about curing time for thin and medium coats. Glen suggested a 1/2 hour for thin and 1 hour for medium.
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