Thread: How to sterilize vintage straights?

Hi,
How can I sterilize vintage straights? Should I try barbicide? Thanks.

They usually have been laying around so long that any possible bugs are long gone. All I do is clean them with scrubbing bubbles if they need it and hone them, strop and shave. So far so good with a couple of hundred of them.

When I get a vintage the first thing I do is wash with antibacterial soap. If that doesn't kill everything then all the polishing and metal cleaners will do it.

what they said and if your really extreemly worryed leave them drying a week or two after cleaning

Originally Posted by ferroburak

Hi,
How can I sterilize vintage straights? Should I try barbicide? Thanks.

You can disinfect the razor, but unless you have access to an autoclave or are willing to soak your razor in Glutaraldehyde for 24 hours, it's not going to happen.

To disinfect, all you need to do is wipe off any bioburden and apply alcohol.

Originally Posted by red96ta

You can disinfect the razor, but unless you have access to an autoclave or are willing to soak your razor in Glutaraldehyde for 24 hours, it's not going to happen.

To disinfect, all you need to do is wipe off any bioburden and apply alcohol.

Barbicide is a hostpital-grade disinfectant. I highly recommend the stuff, if you're worried about sterilizing, but I do not see it as necessary. I keep it around to sterilize razors I sell, as a point of sale and guarantee against legal *&@^ that might come up if I sell a razor to someone who then wants to blame me for their new hepatitis.

put it in alcohol 96% for about 10 minutes, available at your pharmacist.
In a laboratory, you would 'flame off' the alchohol, DON'T do that with your razor, it would affect the heat treat

Lately i have been using miltons sterilizing liquid, its used to sterilize babies bottles etc, very cheap for a 2 litre bottle, which you then water down, if its good enough for babies hygene, its good enough for my straights.

What about a simple honing? The only part that touches your skin is the very edge, and honing removes the metal that was there before. Sanitary! I really don't care much about germs, though, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

If you want to sterilize them, then you will need to take them apart (remove the blade from the scales) and boil or autoclave the blade. You can disinfect the blades using alcohol.