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

Soooooo as it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, the end of a matter is better than it's beginning, and truer words have never been spoken in regards to this project.

A month or two ago, I made a thread about warping on scales due to CA glue. I had a lot of helpful responses in that thread, so thank you everyone that contributed. Cangooner really deserves a big thanks here. He spent quite a bit of time with me in private message chats helping me work through some of the problems. I also want to thank gssixgun for putting a wicked edge on this Wade and Butcher.

I know there is a lot of respect for these blades and I tried to not go too crazy. I imagine people will be either in the love camp or hate it camp. Either way, please post your good and bad opinions.

Without further adieu, here's what I got.




The wood is spalted hackberry and oh mylanta it was a bear to work with. The wood is incredibly soft and sanding in any fashion makes wood disappear with the quickness. It isn't very strong either, so I had to take my time with it. I used black and white ebony for the wedge, and put a little notch in it to compliment the barbers notch. The blade etch says Fine India Steel, and the blade closes very well and it shaves like a beast. I'm still learning the do's and don'ts with razor restoration. The peening isn't 100% perfect, and a scrutinous eye can pick up an imperfection or two in the finish. All that aside, I thought about throwing this project out the window and starting over. I'm so happy that it came out looking as nice as it did. It looks even prettier in person

Cheers