Rough Adoration by Giesen & Forsthoff

My wife came home with a straight razor marked "Adoration", and is made by Giesen & Forsthoff. It is marked Solingen, Germany. Unfortunately, it is in very poor shape! Maybe, it will be good honing and restoration practice for me. The worst - miserable failure, while learning - is quite acceptable. :)

General honing instructions and videos are quite available. However, I am having trouble locating help for recovery of the truly ugly abused blades. So, in complete ignorance, I will tell you next how I intend to proceed in recovery. However, as Sergeant Schultz said, "I know nothing." Please straighten me out!

Using a very coarse stone, I will place the edge of the blade vertically against the stone (as if I am going to cut the stone in half.) I will remove metal in this position until the edge is even, aligned with the spine. (And, of course it will be VERY dull at this point since I have removed the cutting edge.)

The spine has been ground by a grinding wheel or something coarse, as you can see in the picture. So, next, I will work with the sides of the spine to obtain straight sides. My goal will be to true up the sides of the spine with the edge of the blade.

After that, using the instructional videos and information out there, I should be on more charted waters.

So, straighten edge, straighten spine, then sharpen? Thoughts appreciated.

Larry, that's a rough blade. You're right about that. The grinding on the spine is very disappointing, as of course, is the broken tip of the blade.

The grinding on the spine is very severe, but fortunately less severe than it looks. Whatever idiot "sanded" off the metal didn't sand it off vertically. It's almost as if they ground away the convex metal *under* the spine, leaving the top edge of the spine side. (By "top edge of the spine side" I mean the portion of the spine that contacts the hone.)

No offers of advice? :) I'm not too surprised judging by the damage to the blade. I gave it a good try, and am attaching a picture of the slightly improved blade. Also including a picture of my face after a shave with the blade.

Still pretty ugly, especially the spine's side. But, the edge is better, and it shaves reasonably well. (I gave it a quick hone, polish and strop. After a more leisurely treatment, I think it will be a workable razor.)

To a small degree, I feel like I am getting a sense for the differences between blade metals. At first blush, I liked the way the blade took an edge, and especially how smooth it felt while shaving.

This Adoration blade must have been an extremely common razor, judging by how many are for sale on the net.

Regards...

I am afraid that this blade needs major restoration and I wonder whether it will be worth the effort. As you can see the shoulder is sticking out. You need to grind part of the shoulder off as it will be in the way when honing. After that you can strart honing it the usual way starting with a coarse hone and working your way up to a 12K or finer. You may speed things up by breadknifing the frown out.



If you are serious about restoring blades you better buy Bill Ellis's video on restoring blades: Straight Razor Book

Good luck and please do not forget to show us the result and write a shave report.