Living up to my username - an ongoing thread about Silver Steel

[Iceni]

Interesting topic.

I suppose the ultimate answer to the question regarding if it works or not is to look at the various vintage razor manufacturers and see if you can spot examples showing rust.


There is a good swathe of manufacturers that were using some form of silver steel in the early 1900's. Using that you can look for manufacturers that managed to get the mixture correct. If you can find a large collection of blades that have good finishes, come from similar batches of metal, and have a source that can be identified, Then you can probably start to investigate what mixture was used, And hopefully get some research data on how it was treated.

Looking at my ebay habits and how I select razors I have noticed some razors always seem to have a better finish. The manufacturer that pops in my head almost instantly is Bismarck. I have yet to see a rotten Bismarck, I've seen some with pitting, but never full on rust. As far as I have been able to research all Bismarck razors were made with the same "silver steel" mixture. And all Bismark razors fall in to a 30 year window between 1900 and 1930.

This thread has the worst condition Bismarck pictures I have found to date. Mostly every one I see on ebay is still gleaming.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...ld-razors.html

Looking at the way the blade has gone black rather than rusty makes me suspect it's silver oxide. The pictures of the tang clearly show that the rust has been inhibited by the black layer.