I'm a long time DE user, and a recent initiate into straight razor shaving. With a friend's encouragement, and lots of time spent reading all the awesome posts here at the SRP, I decided to take the plunge and buy a vintage blade on ebay. I selected a Boker King Cutter (from the logo, I think 1920s or 30s) selling for $29 Canadian on e-bay, and went for it. The seller's photos were terrible, but after much messaging, decided it could be a workable first purchase.

When the razor came in, I found the blade a little rusty, not too pitted, basically a little grungy but definitely salvageable. The spine was nice and thick and the shaving edge was smooth, so I don't think it saw much honing. The scales were plastic and pinched in the middle, some crud on the inside near the tang. I decided I'd pull it apart for a nice cleaning, and repin with the same scales after a thorough scrubbing ...

Well, the blade cleaned up nicely. I did lose the King Cutter gold wash/etch on the blade - it came off almost immediately with polishing compound and the Dremel - so I decided to do the full 240 up to 1000 grit sandpaper treatment. Finished with some Mother's California Gold Billet Metal Polish and a Dremel, and it's looking pretty shiny. Not a mirror finish, but definitely better than I had expected.

The blade looked so much better, I decided not to put the old grungy scales back on, and made a quick set out of a pen blank (.75 × .75 × 6) of bird's eye maple. I have limited tools ... had a friend rip a couple pieces out of the stock, then carved and shaped with the Dremel and sandpaper. Finished with 8 coats of Tung Oil, and 2 coats of pure carnauba wax. Repinned with the Dovo Replacment Pins from Classic Shaving.

I'm attaching pics of the blade in both the 'as purchased' and 'restored' state. This is my first go at a restoration, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Would love to get your comments. Still need to get a proper hone (Norton 4/8k??) so I can shave with this thing. Tried shaving off my 1000 grit Henkel stone, and that was pretty rough. A Filly strop from ruprazor is on the way.

Name: boker_full.jpg Views: 1105 Size: 20.0 KB
Name: boker_tang.jpg Views: 983 Size: 86.4 KBName: boker_box.jpg Views: 1051 Size: 68.4 KB

Name: boker_full_peened.jpg Views: 987 Size: 71.2 KB
Name: boker_tang_open.jpg Views: 1008 Size: 95.1 KBName: boker_closed_finish_wedge.jpg Views: 1031 Size: 75.1 KBName: boker_closed_peen_wedge.jpg Views: 1058 Size: 64.5 KB