OK, I swear somewhere I saw that in order to clean the blade and the scales that I should soak in hot water with vinegar. I had never needed to do this yet, but recently got a couple razors that were pretty gunky in between the scales. So I put them in for about 5 minutes. Came back and the blades were covered in bubbles, had turned black, and started to show a little rust. Ahhhhhh!!!!

I pulled them out and rinsed in plain water, dried them off, oiled them, and proceeded to 0000 steel wool them to try to get the black off. Then I set them out to dry. I got most of it, but they are still going to need a lot of work.

My questions are 1) Why did this happen? 2) What else should I do now? and 3) One of my scales (the orange one on the right) now has turned white on the surface! If I get it wet, it goes back to orange. How can I fix that so it stays orange? What are those scales made of?

Sorry, no after picture (these were taken before), If need be I can get a pic tonight.