Thread: gold plating on an antique straight razor

I recently purchased an antique solingen (sheffield silver steel) with an imitation tortoise handle.

the blade edge is perfect (not sharp, but no nicks at all)

unfortunately, there is a lot of rust damage. I removed all the red rust with 0000 steel wool and tried to polish out the black stains with MAAS.

It looks a lot better now (but still not "clean" looking).

I don't know how to make it look any better, but a friend suggested i get it gold plated before i ship it off to classicshaving to have professionally honed.

anybody have any experience with this? if the general consensus is that plating is OK, what metal would be best? gold? rhodium? nickel/teflon? palladium?

any input would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

fliz

I haven't hade anything to do with palting in a long time, but I seem to remember that for the plating to work you need to have a clean surface. So, you can't avoid cleaning up the surface by plating.

MAAS is simply not aggressive enough. Try Fabulustre, available at lapidary shops, or Flex Cut Gold, available at woodworking shops. Use a Dremel type tool with a felt wheel and apply the compounds to the wheel. This should clean up the blade nicely. To remove the compounds fron the blade surface use WD-40 followed by alcohol. Be sure to use a low speed on the Dremel and only light pressure.

Hope this helps,

With respect to plating I simply am not aware of anyone who has done so but I did consider it awhile back and still might try it in the future. I would want a nickel finish.

FWIW, I recently spent some time reading about plating with the intent of incorporating some aspects of it into my razor restoration bag of tricks. Joe Lerch's comment is right on -- the surface you plate must be perfectly clean and polished to get good results. Everything I read indicates that plating actually accentuates flaws -- ie, it will not cover up rust and scale, nor fill in scratches, pits, etc. If you can't sand/grind the pit out there are "pit filler" products available. If the pit/scratch isn't too deep you can plate/polish many layers until the pit/scratch is filled.

Thus, whether you do it yourself or pay someone else to do it, the blade needs to be clean, smooth and polished before plating the final layer. (BTW, plating is seldom a single metal process -- that is you generally have to plate a succession of different metals to get good results... eg, you might first plate w/nickel or copper, then silver to get good results.)

Lastly, I read somewhere that celluloid didn't take kindly to either acids or akaline (I don't remember which). So, you'll need to protect the scales from the plating chemicals as the chemicals are usually either acid or alkaline solutions, depending on the process.

Hmmm... once the blade is polished and shiny you might decide to leave it that way (and save the cost of the gold to buy another razor ink: ).

thanks guys. I appreciate all the advice.

I'm definately not going to bother to plate my blade.

thanks for the flex cut gold and fabulustre tips. i know somebody with a dremmel, so i'll ask if she has the felt wheel for it (and if not, buy one)

i'll let you guys know how it goes.

f

If you're going to get into this in a serious way, you'll probably want your own dremmel.

Bill Ellis, who is a member here (and a great guy- urleebird) is an award winning knife maker. He has written a book in CD form about razor restoration. He also has all sorts of hard to find tools. See http://www.billysblades.com/Restoration%20Tools.htm.

Originally Posted by fliz

thanks guys. I appreciate all the advice.

I'm definately not going to bother to plate my blade.

thanks for the flex cut gold and fabulustre tips. i know somebody with a dremmel, so i'll ask if she has the felt wheel for it (and if not, buy one)

i'll let you guys know how it goes.

f