Thread: How often do you polish your razors?

I have around 17 SRs in a regular rotation. I was looking through some photos of when I did the initial restoration on some of my razors and they seem to have lost a bit of the bright shine that I was able to achieve with some polish and elbow grease. They are by no means tarnished to any great extent...just not as bright and shiny as when I did the initial restore. This got me wondering. How often do you polish your razors?

I am personally not bothered if they develop a bit of patina over time. I will generally polish my restores to as close to mirror as possible, and then I will take good care of them. They may need a gentle buffing in 6-12 months time (at times of honing), but nothing major on a regular basis.

I would not worry about patina until it is time to hone. Then you can decide to polish or leave the patina.

Typically after a razor passes the test shave I give them a good coat of renwax and they seem to be pretty good. My problem is I have too many to easily rotate through them, especially since for the most part I only swap razors out once a week, and my favourites I use more often.

I never polish mine. The tendency to over-polish as-beginning is forgiven by the eventual return of the patina!

Are we talking full on power buffer wheels or just cloth rag and maas/flitz?

If I decide to sell a razor, and if it has water spots, I might do a dab of semichrome with a q-tip, follow up with a paper towel. Or, when I first get one, if it has any grunge that I want to get rid of, same procedure. Other than that I don't mess with them.

What means "polish"?

Yeah, I'm with Jimmy..... only if I'm selling or just bought a razor that needs some cleaning. Otherwise, a bit of tarnish give the razor character and makes it look used. Then again, I rarely shave with *nice* razors.... I always use my "junkers', razors that would never sell.... pitting, missing gold leaf, wonky scales and so on. They are good razors, just not pretty.

My wife bought me a plaque to hang on the wall in my..... uuuhhmmm.... junk room?!?! It simply states: "IT'S MY MESS, AND I LOVE IT!" I suppose she's right.....

I'm not even bothered by a little bit of rust around the pivot.... I dry it on the forced air heat register and as long as it doesn't get worse.... I don't worry about it.

Like many of the others have said, After the restore I leave mine, and look after them the best I can.

All my razors have a heavy coat of oil on them. The rotation has heavy mineral on on them & the collection has a heavy preservative oil on them. The blades are all, 98%, as shiny as they were from day one.

The rotation blades are sitting wrapped in a handkerchief & coated with mineral oil; I wipe it off, strop & shave. Then I wipe the razor dry, strop to dry the edge & re-mineral oil & wrap.

This way the blades stay shiny.