Thread: Restoration Options

I have been scouring the local antique shops and these are the blades I came up with. All of them had cracked or broken scales. I cant restore them all so i am gonna get rid of two. I just wanted an opinion on which two i should get rid of. Here is the order from top to bottom. 1. GIESEN & FORSTHOFF 5/8 in pretty good condition but still has some pitting. 2. BRILLANT CUTLERY CO 6/8 in good condition needs polished. 3. WADE & BUTCHER 6/8 in great condition. 4. FREDRICK REYNOLDS 7/8 good shape but has some pitting. Thanks for your opinions as Iam still new to this but have already caught the addiction.

Well what do you preffer to shave with? pick the two you would most likely keep and use. All are great razors. but me, I wouldnt let the W&B or FR out of my sight.

Keep al 4 and take your time whit restore those razors.
If you do want to do 2 razors away, I want to have 3 and 4 on the photo.

Although I can't see no reason why not to restore all four, personally I would have kept the W&B and Reynolds, but it all comes up to what you prefer to shave with.

I say restore all 4! the Reynolds and WB are 2 very popular brands the vintage g&f are generally great shavers too. I've never tried a brilliant cutlery blade so i cannot help you there.
I'm in favor of leaving clean pitting and stains on old blades and just polishing them a whole lot. if you have a vibrating brass casing tumbler you could put them in with walnut media and liquid turtle wax or mother mag polish and let them vibrate until they are nice and shiny and then repeat the process but with corncob media instead of the walnut. works a wonder usually, YMMV.
then you just need scales which you can either buy or make.... either way probably cheaper than a restore job

nice finds by the way!

enjoy,
jim

Why are you only choosing two? I would keep all four and restore them all. Maybe start with one of the top two while you develop your technique and then pick the one that you like best and apply your newly learned talents.

Regards - Walt

Polish them up with autosol and buy cheap theirs-issard scales as temporary scales. At $15 a set, you can't really go wrong