Thread: Rusting on Hart Steel Razor

The problem with the harts is that they have a rough finish,any high carbon blade unless polished to a high fine polish will have far more surface tension,thus far more potiontial to rust.
They are fantastic razors,they take a little more attention and care.

I store my razors, and my woodworking tools that contain metal, in a box. In that box, I put a block of camphor, available at drugstores. The camphor emits an invisible gas which covers the blade, and repels any moisture which might be present. This, in turn, prevents rust. As I said, you can buy blocks of camphor from your local drugstore. They come enclosed in a plastic wrapper. Take the new camphor block and slice an ‘X’ in the wrapper. This allows the camphor vapors to be released, and thus to protect any metal in the storage box. This has helped me prevent rust for years on my metal tools. Hope it helps you.

Kenny

Check out the silicone treated razor sleeves for sale at The Superior Shave. They work perfectly without the hassles of oil.

+1 on the dessicant. you can buy on the bay silica gel packets. put them inside a clear ziploc bag. along with the dessicant packs, put a moisture indicating strip. some of the sellers of dessicant packs even include the moisture strips. they indicate humidity in increments of 10%. so, visually through the clear bag, you can see what the percent moisture is inside, be it 10%, 20%, 30%, etc. change the dessicant packets when the moisture gets to a certain level. good for other things, too. just IMHO, but they do work slicker than, well, you get the point...

Originally Posted by Silver2

Preventing rust is not hard.
First if you have a small bathroom that steams up the mirrors when you take a shower or bath. Do not store your razor in there.
Wipe your razor off after use with a dry towel then with tissue papar, leave the blade open to dry completely. As Jimmy said use a silicon cloth to wipe the blade before storing. Keep the pivot point clean with dental floss unwaxed with a little oil on it.

If your razor DOES NOT have gold wash on it you can polish the metal with flitz metal polish that leaves a protective wax like coating on the blade and scales.

I store my razors in a cigar box that has been sealed on the outside with polyurathan. That seals moisture out. I keep several packets of desicant in there. Once a month I set my cigar box out in the sun opened up for 30 minutes to make sure the inside stays completly dry. I leave my desicant packets in there to dry out also.

When I get a razor out I close the box and never leave it open so it stays dry inside. I have never had a razor rust storing them this way.
Even razors that I am working on and sanding down and storing without oil or anything.

Hope this helps some of you.

Silver2

I really can't believe I am even reading tis post; that, in fact, it has gotten this far. The rust on the Hart was my first concern - not that I had any, but that I heard complaints about it. I must say, I've had my Hart now for, I don't know, maybe two, three or more months now, and I've NOT ever had any problem with rust. All I do is the same thing I do with any razor, make sure it's dry before it's stored! That's it! I love my Hart (pun intended) and I try to take good care of her. In fact, I wouldn't go so far as to say baby her either - I just take care of her like any of my other worthwhile possessions. And, after all, I have a nine year old I'm trying to teach him how to take care of valuable things he someday will own, like my great-grandfather's pocket watch, that was given to him for his college graduation by my second great-grandmother in 1916. So please forgive me if I'm not sympathetic, but, I don't think your problem here is one that's exactly rocket science.

Originally Posted by animalwithin

Mineral Oil I shall get. I was going to ask, does WD-40 harm gold wash or etching in anyway?

In part it depends on how the gold wash was applied.

WD-40 is a water displacing spray stuff. It works well to displace
any water in the pivot and on the surface of steel. Follow up with
a wipe of a preserving oil and you are good to go. Once you have the
pivot well protected there is little need for additional WD-40.

Things to avoid are wipes and solutions like alcohol that remove
the protective layer.

There are a couple types of way to apply gold. Some involves
gold leaf and a lacquer glue others are electro-plated. Glue can
be attacked by solvents. Both can be attacked by abrasives.

WD 40 is great on car parts,even guns and knives,would never use it on a razor.

My Lord, I'll say it again, just make sure it's dry before storing it! I generally remove any and all my razors to my desk, open the blade and very simply put, let it dry out. Problem solved. I've never used any solvents (though I have no opinion on them due to a complete lack of knowledge), so can't attest to viability.

I use many of the techniques mention in the thread with all of my straights; No bathroom storage, warm water rinse and dry, camellia oil, dessicant "packs", and keeping my scales as dry as possible while shaving. Even with this I have been able to pick up some water marks on my Hart where the scales meet the blade. I'm sure I had some moisture left on the scales, and the area is small, but I can't think of any other of my razors I've had this happen with. I agree that the satin finish opens the chance of stains/rust/tarnish more than a highly polished blade.

Still one of my favorite blades...

Indeed, the satin finish is more likely to catch a bit of rusting on the blade. I have cleaned it carefully and used the oil included with the blade, haven't used it ever since. But I will shave with it tomorrow and after I will repeat the procedure.