So begins my shaving & restoration hobby!

After lurking here the past few weeks I thought it would be time to put an intro out there from here in Sydney, Australia.

With my father-in-law finding his grandfathers two Joseph Rodgers & Sons razors, which are beautiful pieces to behold, I got an itch to find out more about straight razors.

Hours of entertaining and informative reading on SRP later I found myself visiting Sydney antique stores and bingo picked up two Sheffield razors, one being a Bengall, just begging to be restored to their former glory. They were sad rusting pieces, so I got to work following the restoration instructions from the SRP library.

Behold, before and after photos of my last two weekends of work on a Sheffield razor, originally manufactured by 'Hodges Brothers'. I'm happy with my cosmetic restoration. Next step is of course to use this beauty to begin my instruction on the art of honing...... Time to save up for a wet stone or two. The Bengall will be next!

Before:
Attachment 136982

After:
Attachment 136985Attachment 136986

Howdy.

Good work my good man, and welcome to the forums. I remember my first restore of a Wade & Butcher which is now one of my favourite shavers.

If you don't mind I would like to make 2 suggestions....

1. Accept that this will not be a hobby. It will become an addiction. Accept it now and embrace it.

2. Maybe send one of these to get professionally honed. Then you have a benchmark of what shave ready is to work from when you start your own honing. I found this to be a godsend and now happily my own. But that starting reference was very important.

Good luck with future projects my good man.

Geek

Thanks Geek, great suggestions.

Yep, I can already feel the addiction.... I've already an ebay blade on the way as another 'restoration project'. What looks like a nice Blue Wonder in what I hope to be good nic.

Luckily I've managed to convince my better half to order me a Ralf Aust from straight razor designs as a birthday present. That'll give me a good shave ready benchmark to start with.

I'm also looking to get one of my father-in-laws Joseph Rodgers & Son's professionally restored and honed by one of the experts here in the near future.

I can see those $$'s flowing out of my wallet :)

Mmmosh

Hey and welcome to the forum

That is a nice job of restoring the W&B. If your honing goes as well as the restore you will be well on your way. Sounds like you have a good grip on how to go about this addiction by making good use of your lurking time. I hope you find the shaving experience as rewarding as I do.

Bob

Bob