Thread: Pre 1890's Wade and Butcher restore. Love it/me or hate it/me.

I Agree... That Is A Nice Looking Razor You Have There!

I'm in the love it camp! Great job man!

Loovveeee. Especially how the scales replicate the end of the blade. Very nice.

Count me in the love it camp. The aged look of the wood, IMO, compliments the the age of the blade. Keep 'er goin'.

LOVE CAMP! That looks great! I have really been into the unusual lately.

Originally Posted by skipnord

Spalted wood is a lot easier to work with if it is stabilized. If you know a knifemaker in your area that can do this for you, it would make working with it a lot easier. Love the look of the wood you used.

I need to rub some elbows with a knife maker in that case. I used stabilized wood once and it certainly wasn't nearly as hard to work with as this. I ended up using the CA glue but it started turning white given that I live in Tallahassee where the humidity is insane. I sanded it down to bare wood as close as possible, and then used acetone and wiped it down. I know it wouldn't make sense in most cases to use acetone on CA, but it gave me a pretty uniform surface of CA glue. I was able to then sand it down again and used a few coats of shellac. Afterwards, I used some car wax/swirl remover and it gave it a beautiful shine.

Originally Posted by JoeLowett

Regarding the soft nature of the wood.... You may want to try adhering to a .03" g10 liner next time and then once you have the wood glue to the backing thin out the wood on a belt sander so you have the look of the wood, the thinness and strength of the g10.. You can apply blue painters tape to the back g10 side of te scale when applying the ca so the inside of the scales stay clean smooth and polished..... This will allow you to work te material thinner which is aesthetically pleasing IMO. Also the wedge could be thinner if you taper it at more of an angle.

On the wedge, I would have been fine under most circumstances with a more narrow wedge. The wood had so many different forces from the warping of the CA glue and the thinness of the wood in certain spots, I didn't want to risk making the wedge smaller and having more force being placed on the wood. The G10 liner would have been a great solution for that, and I'll certainly have to try that with a razor at some point.

Originally Posted by Birnando

Looks like a job well done!
That said, I must confess that it was not quite my cup of tea to be honest.
I suppose I'm more of a traditionalist when it comes to scales.
But again, looks very well executed!

I totally get that and also respect that. In attempt to keep some character of how the razor was made in it's original day, I did stack the washers near the wedge. Also, I still have the black horn scales that came with the razor. They need a little work but aren't in bad condition, and I thought I would fix them up and make them close to original down the road. Even though it isn't your style of scales, I certainly appreciate the kind words.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Great work, Jonah-I love that spalted wood! I have a box full of spalted and burled scale blanks I'm waiting on a local knifemaker friend to stabilize, as well as half a dozen Wade and Butchers I picked up recently, so this is inspiring to me as to what is possible.

Thanks much friend. I really and truly LOVE the way spalted wood looks. I can't wait to see what you whip up!

Originally Posted by RoobtheLoob

Loovveeee. Especially how the scales replicate the end of the blade. Very nice.

If you wanted to try your hand at putting in a notch at the end of the wedge, a pen wrapped with sandpaper makes a near-perfect shape =)





Thank you everyone for your comments. I have really enjoyed working on restoring razors, and it is quite nice to see so much feedback.

Yea I hear ya about the wedge, once the scales start twisting you gotta do what ya gotta do to make it work..

Again though, nice work!

Try the g10 liner.... It's not only a solution to what your saying but it looks sharp too.

Well Jonah if you are happy with it, we are happy with it. It is all about how you feel about it. I personally think you did a fantastic job. Well executed. 35 yrs ago I started as a machinist apprentice. I tried to imitate the fine work of those that were teaching me. To be short my stuff sucked. The older machinists made it look so easy and their finish work second to none. Now later in life I have the pleasure of teaching 2 apprentices myself. They tell me the same " you made it look so easy" how do you do it? It is the big circle of life man. You have to start doing it yourself and the next project gets better and so on and so on. You are well on your way my friend to be admired for what you do so well. Thank you for sharing and I hope to keep seeing your work! I can see that it will only get better and better.My father passed away several years ago and one thing he told me that will always stay with me and this is coming from a machinist of 60 yrs. " he passed away at 80 yrs. old". What he said was "perfection is merely acceptable" as he looked at a project I had finished. What he mean't I believe is each person has a standard that they judge their work by. Each person judges their work very differently. It has to meet your expectations and your standard before it is finished or presentable. I believe it has for you and I am sure your standards are very high. You are well on your way and you are doing very fine work. There is a learning curve with everything you do and with the next project you will use the previous experience to do better. You are doing fine!!!
Sorry for the long winded reply. But I think you get the idea!!!
Ray

You did a fine job on this. Next one you'll know what to expect and please yourself even more. Your ahead of me on the learning to restore thing. I have started a few but finished none.