I might have left it wet one time after a shave. It won't wipe off. Any clues?Attachment 210622
Printable View
I might have left it wet one time after a shave. It won't wipe off. Any clues?Attachment 210622
Could be rust..... light rust at that...... Try any polish?
Any sanding will take off the lettering on the blade.
What are the scales made of?
plastic. what should i use to polish it with?
Try some metal polish on a small area....to test it to see if that works.
I use Blue Magic and MAAS......I think any will work though. Read to make sure it is safe on steel.
Small amount. See if that helps any. Toothpaste may help too.....
Are the scales celluloid? When you rub on the scales does it smell like camphor?
not sure about the scale, but i'm going to try to brush it out with tooth paste first. seems like the safest option right now.
Use a cloth to do it...... Just a small amount.
See what happens. It might work... or maybe not.
And mind the edge - it's easy to damage the edge and even easier for the edge to damage your body parts...
Art of shaving is a fairly new company in terms of history, I doubt those would be off basing at this point. The polish should work fine. I f it needs to be more aggressive try some 0000 steel wool with the polish. It is most likely you will need to hone or have that blade honed too.
A little bit of iron absorption is good and good for you. Just make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. If anything, it proves that the razor is indeed made of carbon steel, which isn't a bad thing in terms of ease of sharpening.
After the razor has dried (after shaving), dip it in a solution of 4 pts methyl alcohol to 1 pt USP mineral oil (avoiding the scales as the alcohol will attack them), leave it out opened for 15 mins. or so until the alcohol has evaporated. Then store it away until the next use. Afterwards, you'll be surprised how much this apparent issue has become a non-issue.
Or just rub some mineral oil over it with your fingertip to make the "rust" go away. Really, it's nothing.
so i got some stuff to polish it. should i keep going or stop? it took off a lot of the lettering, but i dont mind that at all, i just want my blade to be cancer free.
Attachment 210625
Hard to tell from the picture but if you take a white tissue and wipe across it and it has a reddish tint it may very well be very light rust. To me in the picture it looks like water stains or what I call oxidation. I get this even though I wipe my razors down after each use and oil them and every so often use Flitz metal polish which pulls those oxidation stains off.
Yes, hard to tell from a photo, may be hard water stain, may be rust. Water was between the scales when stored. Do store your razor in the open position.
The etching on those razors is very thin and any abrasive polish will remove it. If hard water, a Qtip dipped in vinegar will dissolve it, rinse and dry well, try the least abrasive course first. If not, you will have to polish, try a dap of metal polish and a Qtip.
More importantly, it is probably also on your bevel and edge.
Euclid has a good point, folding the razor up while still wet may be part of the culprit.
At the end of the shaving session, rinse the blade off with hot water and carefully wipe it off with a bar towel or toilet paper to dry it, taking care not to deform the edge. Then leave it out opened to dry for an hour or two (or all day). Then store it away as is, in a silicone sleeve, or, as I do, dip it the alcohol-mineral oil solution I mentioned above. Oiled like this, the "rust" will stabilize and no longer be an issue. The alcohol-oil solution also acts like a solvent, dissolving any soap scum traces that might still be lingering there.
If anything, a little bit of oxidation gives the blade character. Rather than risk to efface the etching further, I would just leave it as it is and dry it out properly after shaving, oiling it as needed.
I know the water at my house is pretty hard. Its caused damage to my shower handle a few times, but thats another story. And I know for a fact I did store the razor while the scale was wet. I saw it, I knew it was probably a bad idea, but I was in a rush to go and I did it anyway. I'll try the white tissue test once I get home from work to see if its actually rust. But there is a good chance that its hard water stain as well.
If the stuff is on my bevel and edge, does that mean I have to get it rehoned again? The 12k super stone I ordered just arrived, would that be enough to fix it, or would I need to go all the way back down to a 1k and reset the bevel?
Rust will not cause tetanus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brontosaurus
Depends, Look at it with magnification, to see if the rust or whatever is on it has eaten or damaged the bevel and edge. If it has, the 12k can touch it up, with the proper technique.
Read the first 3 threads in the Honing Forum and the Library section if needed.
First, determine what it is, then see if the edge is damaged before you do any honing.
So I did the tissue test and no red came off at all. I put it under a microscope and I'm fairly certain that it is water stains. The abrasive metal polish I used on it got most of it off to the point that you can only see it when you shine light on it.
Prior to this incident I was already planning to refresh the edge anyways. I've been using this razor to shave my head a lot and I've put a good amount of use on it that I feel like I needed a 12k touch up. Since a few months back I've already had to use a diamond paste on a leather strop to keep it sharp every couple weeks or so. I've done that enough that it never gets back to the same sharpness that I had after you helped me rehone it back at the beginning of the year. I really appreciate that by the way, Euclid440.
I bought a 12k naniwa super stone, a mount, and some chromium paste. I already had a diamond paste from before.
So here is the plan so far. Today is kind of my friday night as far as my days off goes, so this is my project for tonight. Hopefully I get it all done in 1 night, haha.
1. flatten my 12k stone on a 3M 400 grit sand paper. I bought a single ceramic tile to do this on. I'm using reverse osmosis filtered water to soak and wet the stone. Its not distilled but hopefully its not so hard that it ruins anything. going to use the pencil mark grid test to make sure the stone is flat. Then I'm going to round the edges on the stone.
2. Put on Lynn Abrams 12k stone instruction video and follow it verbatim step by step.
3. strop the razor on the diamond paste how ever recommended times the video says.
4. strop the razor on the chromium applied linen side as directed.
5. strop the razor on a regular leather strop 60 passes.
6. mess everything up and ship it to straightrazordesign to get everything fixed proper.
hopefully I never get to step 6. fingers crossed. I kind of remember what you showed me last time euclid440, so I figured nows a good a time as any to see how good of a student I am.
I'm probably going to move at an extremely slow pace, so if any of you guys some something I missing or wrong with my plan, let me know. I'll be checking back here periodically. wish me luck.
Edge may still be fine, given the oxidation as shown, although I agree with Euclid that viewing it under a decent achromatic loupe (~10x) would help determine this. If the blade was stored away dampened, and that is the culprit, then from now on it is important first to rinse the blade completely, then wick off the excess moisture with a towel or tissue, and then strop the blade afterwards, around 5-10 laps on cotton (to further dry the bevel and edge) and then 30-40 laps leather. And as far as stropping goes, that may be all one needs. Leave out opened to dry completely before storing it away.
I'm positive that I did store the razor damp one time. I didn't think that was enough to cause problems. But after that time I didn't go back to use it for quite some time. I just let the face hair grow out for a long time. I was really busy at the time. Prior to that, I always did the 7 laps after each shave on the cotton side. than 20 times on the leather side.
heres what I'm working with tonight.
http://i.imgur.com/3f1yChb.jpg
Whatever that loupe is, did you verify that the edge has deteriorated? The oxidation as shown in the first post didn't seem too severe, just cosmetic, but if it was stored away damp for a spell, who knows... What troubles me here is the strop as pictured--looks like mold on the leather side. I store my razor and strop outside of the bathroom, in a dry location. Use electrical tape if you're taping the spine. Gotta use a clean strop without mold like that (if that's what it is). Otherwise, if it's pasted like that, use it to clean the edge a little. Might be all that's needed. Less of an approach is sometimes more in some cases.
the edge looked fine under the microscope. the stuff on that strop is the diamond paste. I only use that for refreshing, thats not my regular strop. I'm going to apply the chromium oxide paste to the cotton side of that strop.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brontosaurus
here is my progress so far. I took the first grid off the stone. I'm on a 400 grit paper, so it took longer than the guide said. I expected that with a finer grit sand paper. i'm doing the second round with the pencil grid right now.
http://i.imgur.com/dXSFOkY.jpg
rounding the edges, I took a bit more off the stone that I would have liked, but I will learn from that. time to do my 10 laps on this stone, x strokes using only the weight of the blade.
http://i.imgur.com/mcg3rfH.jpg
I did my best to prevent bubbling on the tape so that one side wouldn't pop up more that the other.
http://i.imgur.com/J5EE84A.jpg
Okay, thanks for the strop clarification. Do what feels best for you. A refresher on the 12k hone, or on the pasted strop. Both may serve the same end. Or just a standard stropping if the edge hasn't been deteriorated. Good luck, and dry that blade off afterwards!
http://i.imgur.com/3qKeBUm.jpg
So I just wrapped everything up. after the 10 laps on the 12k stone, I did 10 laps on the diamond paste, than 10 laps on the chromium paste. 7 laps on a clean cotton strop, than 60 on strops on the leather side.
I didn't ruin the razor! so thats a plus. But I didn't make much difference. The shave was a little better than it was before, but not nearly as good as it used to. the razor doesn't pass the hanging hair test. The shave it self felt really smooth though. even though it failed the hanging hair test, i didn't feel any tugging when I was shaving.
I felt like I did a really poor job on the stone. I didn't want to damage the blade so I was super timid on the strokes. I saw some dark slurry on the stone, but not very much at all. in fact, I'm not sure if it was just the lighting playing tricks on my eyes. I'd like to note that after lapping/flattening the stone, the side I did came out super fine. a lot smoother than the other side by a large margin. I'm not sure if the 400 grit paper was the right choice.
All in all, I think it was a positive experience. I might give it another shot after I have some time to better process everything I just did. Thanks for reading. If anyone has some advise, feel free to let me know.
You have to do what the edge needs, not just X number of laps. When Lynn talks about a number of laps in a video it is just a ball park, you have to do, what your razor needs. And that includes pressure, you may need a little more pressure, just don’t grind it excessively. If you use more pressure lighten up on the final laps.
So look at the edge, straight down on it, looking for shiny reflections, those are chips or where the bevels are not meeting. Then look at the bevel and edge from the side where the reflections were, to see how deep the chips are. You have to hone until the bevels meet fully. with no chips. A12K super stone is more than capable of honing all but the largest chip.
Also it is probably your stropping that is dulling your edge, stropping on diamond may be dulling your edge more.
Look at the edge first, then hone until the bevels are meeting fully. Then strop on Chrome Oxide and skip the diamond. A 12k edge stropped on Chrome Oxide should give you a very nice edge.
Or bring it by and I will show you how to fix it.
