New guy from VA

Hey my name is talloak. I am mostly interested in restoring vintage razors as a hobby, mostly because I want to build custom wooden scales. Not sure how interested I am in doing the honing part of it myself - we'll see. I need a hobby and I live in an apartment, so space is limited. I am interested in woodworking and have played around with woodworking before a little bit with a highly skilled friend. But don't have the space or money for my own woodworking tools, so I like the idea of making scales because they are so small. I figure I can work mostly with hand tools, kind of like whittling. This may not be accurate - I've got some reading to do.

My previous hobby was homebrewing. It was really fun and I was involved quite a bit with a forum online, and with a local homebrew club. But I started moving around the country too often to drag along 300-400 cubic feet of homebrewing equipment. So I need a new hobby where I am crafting something by hand - need the outlet. My profession is as a scientist/researcher in the field of forestry.

Hi and welcome. Check out the workshop forum for heaps of info about restoring razors and custom work. Good luck and hopefully we can convert you to SR shaving

Welcome to the S.R.P. Its not that hard to make scales but without a belt sander it will a bit of work. there is a lot of sanding involved in making and fitting scales its much easier to do with machinery. Good luck.

Greetings talloak from a fellow ex home-brewer and apartment dwelling novice razor restorer.

It's definitely not a problem to do restorations in a confined environment. I have a space about the size of an office desk dedicated as a workstation and it works fine. A more extravagant work space would aid your productivity, but as simply a hobbyist, I make due fine with hand tools and the occasional Dremel employment, usually to rough cut scale shapes. I enjoy the relative monotony-tranquility-mindless repetition of hand sanding (kind of a mental "palette cleanser") and find razor restoration to lend itself well as a hobby for those with limited shop space. Wood, acrylic, carbon fiber, G10, and most other scale making materials are easily worked by hand.

You'll find abundant resources here to aid you. In addition to a battalion of guys with a lot more experience than we have who don't seem to mind answering from the most trivial of questions to divulging trade secrets, you'll find a nicely stocked "Library" tab at the top left of each page. Help is never far away.

Enjoy!

Welcome! I hope you post some of your restorations! Quality restorations are always a treat to look at!