Thread: It's about time!

Hey there! My name is Joe, I'm 26 and I live on long island in new York. I have been been getting straight razor shaves at the barber since before my fuzz turned to whiskers. About 3 months ago I started dabbling in wetshaving. After I bought my first soap and brush I was given a straight razor with disposable blades by my barber, and since I have acquired a new 5/8 dovo pearlex which I purchased from srd. I hqv been reading articles and been reading post after post here arp I final found a need to join the club. I bought my first eBay razor this past week and am anxiously awaiting it's arrival. Now that I feel comfortable shaving and stroping a razor I thought it would be nice to work on a beginners project. The razor I found was a heavy wedge wade and butcher fine India steel set and ready for use. I pAid $60 for it, which I know is a bit more than I probably should have, but I honestly had to have it. I currently have not yet invested in a large amount of restoration equipment ie a bench grinder, and I was hoping to do the restoration by hand with sand paper and polish... Is this advisable? Can any one give me sone advice on where to start with this? After all my reading I'm sure I have an idea what to do, and though it's been written a thousand times I could use some professional reassurance right about now!!! Thanks in advance for any / all responses!

Hi, and welcome to SRP!

The short answer to your question about whether you can do a restoration by hand is that you absolutely can! (depending on one's skill and ability of course). My first few restores were done without the benefit of any power tools apart from a drill.

Don't worry about what you paid for the razor - if it was worth that to you, then it was worth that.

And the best place to start looking for info on restoration is the Workshop forum: The Workshop

In particular, take a look through the sticky post there: http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...wers-here.html

Good luck, and have fun!

Thanks so much for the link! I knew the info was somewhere around here!!!!

Welcome!

I still only use sandpaper and some metal polish on any restores I do. It takes more time but for me since I don't do many, I can't justify getting all the buffers and such. Plus there's a feeling I accomplishment after spending hours bringing a blade back to life by hand.

My advice is start with the highest grit you can that will remove the rust/watermarks. It's a bitch working all the way up from 250 if you have to go that low.