Thread: Vintage Blades

After discussing shaving with a SR with a co-worker the next day he brought me in 6 blades that had belonged to his grandfather. 3 of them are beyond repair but the other 3 are restorable. I’ll get some more and better pics when I get home to my good camera. The top blade is marked MANUFACTURED BY GEO WOSTENHOLM & SON FOR BARBER USE, and there’s an I-X mark to the left of that. This is a huge blade measuring 8/8 and almost a ¼ in thick. It has horn or bone scales that have been destroyed by some type of bug.
The next blade is a WB. The tang reads MANUFACTURED BY WADE & BUTCHER SHEFFIELD and has the left circle with the right facing arrow pointing towards the cross. The blade has been engraved with the words, HOPKINS, HARDEN & KEMP. There was another word engraved below but I can’t make out due the bottom of the lettering being honed away. This blade too has bone/horn scales that have been eaten away.
Just wanted to see what you all thought. I will definitely have the two above mentioned blades restored. The other blade that’s in the best condition out of the 6 is a smaller 5/8 stamped SIMMONS HDWE CO. U.S.A. It has black plastic scales that are in good shape. I’ll get some pics up when I get to a better camera.

Congrats! Those will be awesome when restored!

Looks like they will be a lot of fun! Those two have lots of character.

My $.02
If these are your first restores, recommend read the wikis, and first jobs hand sand the more "average" blades. Hand sanding provides intamtecy to appreciate where you need to be easy and can be aggressive. Sounds odd since it is "just a piece of steel" but it helps.

Great Score! If I'm not mistaken, without a Country of Origin, it's probably pre-1880!

It's amazing how some of the straights can come back from the dead! Here's the link to my Great Great Grandfather's W&B Looked like and how it looks now! Shaves Great! However, it's an entirely different 'Feel' than the hollow grounds that I have!

http://straightrazorpalace.com/custo...ered-horn.html

Please define "beyond repair!" Sometimes miracles can happen so it would be best to post photos even of them.

Originally Posted by Utopian

Please define "beyond repair!" Sometimes miracles can happen so it would be best to post photos even of them.

+1 to that.

When I said un-restorable, I should have said that one was un-restorable and I,m not sure if the other two are worth restoring.

This one has some big chips out of the blade and, the scales are pretty twisted.




This one looks restorable but I,m not sure if its a nice enough razor to restore. I might attempt to do this one myself. I will be sending the first two out for rostral.




I have some better pics of the nicer three blades that i'll post later.

The first is well beyond my skill level! I believe it could be ground down to be a 3/8 or 2/8 razor. Some guys like those narrow ones, particularly for the upper lip area.

The second one is all determined by how deep the corrosion goes on the blade. The scales are fantastic on it though. If nothing else carefully de-pin and save them for a different razor.

Hahaha! Got that right!

Yup, the Eliot is destined for the organ donor program. The blade is gone. The Oxford might surprise you. It's fun to make zirconias out of lumps of coal. Sorry it ain't gonna be a diamond.
Now, is it worth the bother?
Not really if you're going to do it by hand, though it might be good for Dremel practice. If you do that, remember that the rotation of the wheel MUST be from spine to edge--going the other direction can lead to severe injury. If I had that razor I would give it 10 minutes of quick low grit greaseless buffing and then throw it into a tumbler with aggressive media for several days and then into walnut media for up to a week. That way I would only have 10 minutes invested in it.

Oh, and I would definitely put those scales on some other razor.