Thread: W. Greaves & Son Goes back On The Line.

My first guess would be horn. I've seen a lot of horn have that translucent brown-orange look. Especially with the ridges you're describing. Incredible what was hidden under all that grime either way, nice save.

Edit: here's another greaves with similar looking scales, and these I know are horn: http://straightrazorpalace.com/show-...-shepherd.html

Nice razor, Hirlau! I thought it was horn in the first pic. I have seen some guys clean off the original dye and crud and have a honey color to them. With the graining on them in the before pics, I think horn.
I have not seen a Greaves with original Turtle, but hey! It could be! Nice save!
"Greaveses have souls"
Tom

Very nice restore. Congratulations!

Do you use mainly sandpaper and a buffer or only sandpaper?

Dave

Congratulations on an awesome find there Hirlau !

She's an absolute beauty

That is the kind of razor i always search out now.

Mike

Originally Posted by rolodave

Very nice restore. Congratulations!

Do you use mainly sandpaper and a buffer or only sandpaper?

Dave

I had sanded it, I probably should have used the buffer, but my skill level is not that good with the buffer & I was afraid of hitting the scales with the buffer.

[QUOTE=mycarver;1064907]
I also included two of my W&Bs in genuine tortoise shell. Working on these they didn't show the same graining patters of the horn. They instead almost appeared as if they were layers on layers ( some separation can still be seen along the edges)
Chances are as well that if you touch a hot pin to the inside of the scale, it'll smell like burning hair.
[QUOTE=mycarver]

I hate to tell you this, but I'm 100% certain one of your two W&B in tortoise shell is actually in horn - and I think the other one is in some sort of plastic or bake light if not horn, but def/ not real shell - even though you say they don't act like your horn. Also, the hot pin test smelling like burning hair test - I'm pretty sure you get the burning hair smell on shell too, as they are both made of the same material, but I would talk to Lynn or Glen or one of those who has certainly seen the genuine article repeatedly and done real tests on it. The hot pin test is usually used to distinguish ivory from look alikes. Look at the OP's tortoise shell pictures - the shell looks nothing like translucent honey horn, as the mottling is not in streaks but "blotches" that no not have hard edges, and the clear areas are not completely clear. They made tons of horn scales to look like shell - I've thrown away dozens of broken horn scales that look like your second wade and butchers scales, sorry to say