Thread: french frameback with removable blade.

Originally Posted by HARRYWALLY

It's an Ad Arbenze razor that I can't seem to find any info on.

Adolf Arbenz was a French cutler working in Jougne in the French Doubs, about 30km from Pontarlier, where most of the French absinthe was produced at the time.

Jougne is not that far from "Le Sentier", where Lecoultre was established at the time. It is safe to assume that, indeed, the mechanism is the Lecoultre mechanism.

Therefore, Arbenz used a marketting trick at the time, mainly used in the world of absinthe : the Swiss cross meaning "Swiss quality" (which was the highest grade for absinthe).

I am currently working on mine. A friend of mine (Thaeris) put some ivory scales on it, and I intend to perform a scrimshaw on them, in hommage to my other passion (which is easy to guess at this point).
Of course, the blades are non disposable, and besides the known set, you can find leather purses for the other blades :

re #7 - the problem could be that the blade is not original - I have 3 Lecoultre razors with different sized blades - so maybe yours was swapped over at some stage.

I'm always on the look-out for them because one of my razors is all brass but the blade is wrecked.

Thank you all for the posts! I am learning more every time I look at this thread!
~Richard

Originally Posted by UKRob

re #7 - the problem could be that the blade is not original - I have 3 Lecoultre razors with different sized blades - so maybe yours was swapped over at some stage.

I'm always on the look-out for them because one of my razors is all brass but the blade is wrecked.

I'm always on the lookout for extra blades as well so if I run across any, I will let you know. I even wrote to a person in France who sells a lot of French razors on eBay but he never replied.

Originally Posted by stimpy52

On the subject of removable-blade framebacks ---- I picked up a LeCoultre recently with a bit of cosmetic challenge. It honed very easily and shaves nicely but--but--but-the blade doesn't feel tightly seated. It has both lateral and end play, not falling out, just not as tight as I thought it should be. The screw that fixes it in place is turned all the way in. Normal? Junk? Repairable?

As with others have said. The hole is probably dirty or has grime in it & like Richard said, he uses a toothpick to clean the threads out on those which makes sense. pixelfixed also said this: Have actually re-tapped a couple that had bad threads to a standard SAE set screw. That is also another alternative. Try cleaning the hole out with a toothpick & run the screw in & out a few times using a thin lubricant & it might break that grime loose that is in there. That's what it has to be from what you described. If that doesn't wrk then UKRob might be right because there are a couple different size blades that go in them.

Originally Posted by Geezer

Thank you all for the posts! I am learning more every time I look at this thread!
~Richard

Me too. I'm really glad I decided to post. I wasn't really sure what I had. I actually got the blade while on my way to our last meet at Mikes house in Orangeville.

Originally Posted by engine46

I'm always on the lookout for extra blades as well so if I run across any, I will let you know. I even wrote to a person in France who sells a lot of French razors on eBay but he never replied.

Save some for me guys!!

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Have actually re-tapped a couple that had bad threads to a standard SAE set screw.

I had seen that same thing done before. Maybe it was Pixel that wrote the post!