Using vintage steel

I find myself being drawn to older straights, mid 1800's stuff. Looking at the ones on Ebite with original handles I keep comming up with the question "How safe are the scales?" Some look ok but others seem to have seen better days. I have also been drawn to lighter colored horn scales. How do the nearly 200 year old horn scales hold up to say weekly use?

I'm inclined to just bid on older ones with trashed scales and have someone put new horn scales on it. But that will have to wait till I'm a bit richer :p

I have some very old scales and other than being a little brittle they seem fine.

Old horn can be improved with neats foot oil.

Joe C. puts on new horn scales for around $40 IIRC.

I've picked up some very nice razors from ebay for cheap due to junk scales and poor pics. Blades I should say, nice blades from ebay.

Most times the junk scales equal a $40 discount, enough to pay for brand new scales!

Mmm sounds good, I'm looking at one now that I really love the blade, the scales are nice. But I see some seporation under the surface, not sure how bad that can be.

At the moment I'm still waiting for a blade to arrive at Bill Ellis's shop for re-hanlding so I'm keeping away from that cash, also a custom re-handle on a special kitchen knife... So I need to quit looking at Ebite for a few weeks :p

There are some great buys to be found if you look hard and are patient.

I've purchased Rodgers and W&B wedges with good blades but crap scales for $10. I then paid about $75 per razor to have them reground and rescaled. But it was well worth it because I now have a couple of beautiful razors with custom scales for under $100 each - not to mention that they are amazing shavers (FYI, I have a thing for wedges).

Yeah, rescaling seems the way to go. But it would be nice to have a totally original razor with old scales that was still useable too.