Thread: Tuning in from St. Louis

Hi folks,

I got started wet shaving about a year ago, and started with straights about three months later. I've been slowly building skills, first shaving, then honing, and finally (about a week ago) restoring. Still working on all three! I'm building a workshop for restoring, locating it in a basement laundry room/book shelf area. Got shelves and a workbench set up. Am now building four roll-up polyethylene walls to surround the work bench so I can use a buffer. Meant to get up this morning and get to work on it, but then got caught up looking through threads on various forums in SRP. Wow. Day half gone already. I'd better get to work!

I already posted pictures on other threads, but here I'll post these to show where things stand right now. Here's the workbench/shelves area:



And here's one of the razor sanding jig, with embedded magnets to hold the blade in place:



I've finished restoring a couple of razors and have maybe thirty total waiting for treatment. First, though, the plastic retractable walls. I'll post pictures in the workshop forum once they're finished.

Joe

Hello, and welcome to SRP

Welcome,

Take a ride down to Cape and we'll shorten your learning curve on restorations and honing.

Have fun.

Gas up the car and take Lynn up on his offer, I wish I could but it's a 3 day road trip for me...one way.:/

A serious leap out of the gate! Looks like your setting up for the long haul. Let's see some restored razors resulting from your efforts soon!

Originally Posted by Lynn

Welcome,

Take a ride down to Cape and we'll shorten your learning curve on restorations and honing.

Have fun.

Thanks! I've watched some of your videos but had no idea you were in Missouri. I might amble on down at some point and get a look. I'm sure there's lots to see.

Joe

Joe, Welcome to SRP. Good luck with your workshop.

Originally Posted by entropy1049

A serious leap out of the gate! Looks like your setting up for the long haul. Let's see some restored razors resulting from your efforts soon!

I've done a couple. The first one I finished was this old Ern 11/16:



You can see the left-over pitting at the toe above the notch. I compromised between getting rid of all the pitting and saving the etching on the blade ("Echt Sollinger Stahl"--genuine Sollingen Steel). On this little Ern, I removed the blade but didn't unpin the wedge end.

Here's the back side of it:



On the second one, an F. R. Reynolds finished a couple of days ago, I unpinned the wedge end also:






Far from a perfect job. In unpinning the wedge end, I cause a slight crack extending from the pin at the wedge end on the front side of the blade. I stabilized the crack with CA and sanded it down. I used CA also on some delamination inside the scales. The crack isn't very visible in the picture, but might be more visible once I take pictures using the light tent that's still in a box.

Another grief with the F. R. Reynolds is that it isn't centered perfectly in the scales. I ended up putting two washers on each side of the blade, which helps, but I still have to be careful closing the blade.

A lot to do! Maybe in another week, I'll finally have all the basic equipment set up and can settle in for some mileage on restoration. I jumped in and did these first two with hand-sanding. Reading tutorials is helpful, but the lessons are much increased in value by getting one's hands working on a razor.

Thanks for the welcome guys!

Joe

Originally Posted by carrolljc

Thanks! I've watched some of your videos but had no idea you were in Missouri. I might amble on down at some point and get a look. I'm sure there's lots to see.

Joe

Oh yeah!! Buffers, grinder, saws, tools and lots of hones......

Come on down.

Hi and welcome. Good luck with your restores