Thread: How do you refurbish a used razor?

I take on a minimal aproach to restoration when I get a "new to me" razor, all but one of my collection are vintage. I inspect every part looking for damage, it's always there somewhere, and decide if I can fix or replace it.

The edge gets first inspection cause if it's toast nothing else will make that blade work. Than I move off to the rest in no particular order. Even if the edge is unservicable other parts may still be of use so I'll check and retain all servicable parts.

Scales can be tricky and one must test the scales with the kind of treatment one would expect for normal use. I've had some knock out beautiful scales shatter by simply opening the razor as well as having worm eaten horn scales hold up under adverse conditions. Pins, collars and wedges get the once over as well.

If all is well with a razor and I don't have to take it apart, I don't. I'll run it over the 1k Shapton Glass stone to see whats going on with the blade as a whole. Where are the grind marks? What is the wear like? Why is the new grind so far from the edge? and so on. I have had to come up with some goofy honing styles to match wear patterns at times. Warped blades made some rather interesting users come up with "warped" honeing techniques LOL

There are many more issues that pop up, That is why new users are strongly encouraged to send the blade to a knowledgable honemeister to work out the kinks. This also serves to give you a baseline to learn where an edge should be for shaving. I didn't do that right off and I thought I had a pretty darn good shaving edge... Till I got one from Bill Ellis... I was close but not that close With that proper edge I was able to really boost my game big time. Almost 8 years later I have not gone back to any other way of shaving (safty razors still give me the willies)

Welcome to the insanity