Thread: Challenge Razor

So I went to an antique store while on a road trip and saw this guy had a box of knives and razors for 15 a pop. I would have bought more than one but the wife was there giving me that look. I was wondering about the dates on it. It has no "made in" markings or anything like that. It just has the word "challenge" on one side of the tang and quite ornately I must say, and a rifle on the other side. The scales are black plastic I believe and the blade is a square point. It seems as though it was never really used as the hone wear is almost non-existent. It's a 6/8 too. I will try to get pictures up as soon as I can. Unfortunately its a new camera and a computer that I am not familiar with that is keeping me from being able to upload the pictures.

I''d like to see pictures of this, is it maybe a "rifle steel" razor? Post ASAP.

So heres the photos. Excuse the doubles and the fact that there are only two photos. I am using a new camera that I haven't quite figured out and everytime I tried to upload the photos SRP wouldn't let me.

Originally Posted by stimpy52

I''d like to see pictures of this, is it maybe a "rifle steel" razor? Post ASAP.

It's funny that you say "rifle steel" because I was thinking that it smelled like a rifle or gun barrel. Then I dismissed it as just being in my head because I figured that while all steel is not the same there can't be huge differences in smells. But now that you say that it makes me wonder.

All old oiled-up razors smell like old rifles!
So Challenge Razor Co was changed to Challenge Cutlery in 1899. Since it says Challenge only, I think this one is from 20's to 30's or so. The scales seem to be celluloid.
Nice!

Originally Posted by sharptonn

All old oiled-up razors smell like old rifles!
So Challenge Razor Co was changed to Challenge Cutlery in 1899. Since it says Challenge only, I think this one is from 20's to 30's or so. The scales seem to be celluloid.
Nice!

I was thinking in the 20's at first because I read on i think strazors.com (i think that is the site name) they said that challenge went up for sale in 1926 and by 28 they were no more. Then I was thinking it was older than the 20's because again I thought I read on another thread here that by the 20's a "made in" stamp was required. But thats just going off of memory and I am prone to being wrong by memory.

Either way it hones up really nice and I am just waiting till tuesday to shave so I have a nice 3 day growth and see what its capable of.

Never mind I just saw that country of origin labeling or COOL was required beginning in 1930 so it most likely is a 1920's razor.

So today I finished honing the above razor. I thought I had finished it yesterday but it failed one of my test and there was a small chip near the heel and in all honesty that are probably never would have touched my face but I'm a little anal with my edges. Yesterday I used my bevel setter a EZ-E Lap diamond 1200g hone and then a dragons tongue from Inigo Jones. I built up slurry on it and diluted till just water. Then I did the same with my PHIG. Like I said I wasn't quite happy with it and its probably due to the fact that I have only used the PHIG a few times and haven't learned it quite yet.

So today I just went to the coticule as thats is my most consistent finisher and the one that I have had the longest and know the best. Its quite fast with slurry and medium slow on water. I decided to start over with building a heavy slurry and doing 20 circles each side medium pressure and then another 20 with no pressure followed by 10 or so heel forward X's then dilute and continue the X's till all water. I did 25 X's on water with no pressure then did another 25 with oil no pressure. I checked the bevel with a bright surefire light and a parabolic magnifying glass I got from a friend who works at a lab. I don't know the magnification on it but it works big and is huge and sets ants on fire like nobodies business (Im still my 8 year old self when it comes to stuff like that). Anyways the edge was still looking a little scratchy and I guess this is because the steel is harder than what I am used to but I was tired and really wanted to shave because I haven't shave since saturday.

I decided I would strop it up 50/100 denim/leather and see what happens with a shave test. I was only going to test my sideburn wtg stroke. Well I lathered up using some VDH deluxe soap. I have better soaps but I wanted to see how well this soap worked being I have heard some people say that it is decent soap. It lathered up good but I decided to add some glycerin to it anyways and accidently added a little too much. This actually turned out quite nice and I was very impressed with the end product. So I did a swipe along the sideburn and OH MY GOD!!! It was practically BBS with just one swipe going wtg. I have never experienced this like ever. So I decided to do another swipe on the other sideburn. Same result. So I decided to do another...and another....and another until my face was shaven. I was completely BBS in some areas and quite close in others. So I decided to do an xtg pass.

Now normally I do a three pass shave. After I did my xtg though it was clearly unnecessary but I wanted to anyways so I did. It was amazing. No irritation and no cuts (this was my first time shaving with a spike so I was a little nervous). I would have to venture and say that it was my best shave yet. Best part is this razor was 15 bucks. I think now I will look into getting it rescaled because the scales are a little flimsy and when I was shaving I noticed that in some parts they started to turn green where some lather had gotten. I am thinking maybe some nice figured zircote or mango wood scales.

Nothing like a Happy ending.

Here ya go. NOS Challenge Razor Works, Bridgeport, Conn