Thread: Restoring an old straight razor

Hey everyone,
I have an old j.a. Henckles straight razor from I believe, the early 1900's that I'm going to restore. Overall, it's in great shape. No pitting, chips, damage or anything. Just a little bit of tarnish/rust. Can anyone tell my the best product to use for removing this rust and make the steel shine like new and bring it back to original condition? (It's carbon steel by the way)
Thanks!

This link will send you in the right direction. Look under "Cleaning & Polishing:"

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...wers-here.html

I have had very good luck with Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish. There have been times it would require several applications and a lot of elbow grease but my results have been more than satisfactory. Just be careful working around the edge as that edge, even if it doesn't feel that sharp, will bit you.

In case you didn't know J.A. Henckels are probably the best German made razor out there, at least of the ones I've tried and I've honed and shaved with over 100 straight razors in the past 7 years. I have two Henckels and love 'em! If you are not experienced honing a straight razor send it to a pro, you'll be glad you did.

Good luck and show us some before and after pics, we love pics here on SRP!

I like Flitz and Maas.
Sometimes I'll use cr/ox (chromium Oxide), before I use metal polsh. Its more aggressive than polish, but works the same. [emoji6]

Hi and welcome. Another couple polishes not mentioned yet are blue magic and autosol.

If it's rust then you will probably need more than polish but the tarnish should come off fine. Be careful of and wash etc as you can take them off pretty easy

If it is not deep rust I use a brass brush and CLR and rinse thoroughly. Light sanding with 1500 wet/dry sand paper, then polish with Mothers.

You can also cut the rust off with a SE razor blade before you polish.

Before

After

After chromium oxide.

After polished

Do you have any pics for us to see? There are a few ways depending how bad it is. Outback's way is one of them. Thanks Mike.

This won't be your only razor, welcome to the addiction.

I also use polish but combine it with steel wool. 000 steel wool with WD-40 and it can really dig deep and get out some fairly deep black, but it does leave a bit of a scratchy finish, so 0000 with polish can really makes a nice semigloss finish. It does require quite a bit of elbow grease but is a low tech low risk way of getting all the black and red rust off and the blade shiny.