Thread: Rolls Razor

Originally Posted by mcgyver74

I got mine yesterday, is in great condition, the stone is good, and only 1 nick in the strop. Does anyone have a good writeup on changing that?

Also, is there anyone that can re-hone the blade? It's pretty dull but well worth fixing IMHO

changing the strop on a rolls is quite simple with some time and care, there only held in slightly by the curled edges of the metal case, if you get a fine flat blade scredriver on an edge and gently work the edge out it will come out quite easily. you just need to replace it with a similar size and thickness piece of leather, you may even find someone here that can re-cut a new strop for it.

as for honing the blade you can normally do this with the stone that came with the razor, moving it back and forth, however i have read posts on here that you can hone it on normal stones by sliding it back and forth in the same fashion as a normal straight blade, im not an expert on this though so id suggest having a read on here about doing that. I found that a good couple passes on the stone it came with tends to keep mine nice and sharp.

hope this helps
kris

I have one and it gives a pretty good shave. It's certainly fun to use. It was given to my Grandfather as a parting gift from his work when he joined the navy in WWII.

As he explained it to me, the strop was to be conditioned with a strop paste, which sounds similar to dovo red paste (he thinks it was rouge mixed with lanolin). I think the daily stropping was intended to be done using the pasted strop, does anyone know if this is true or not?

Originally Posted by Krisdavie

changing the strop on a rolls is quite simple with some time and care, there only held in slightly by the curled edges of the metal case, if you get a fine flat blade scredriver on an edge and gently work the edge out it will come out quite easily. you just need to replace it with a similar size and thickness piece of leather, you may even find someone here that can re-cut a new strop for it.

as for honing the blade you can normally do this with the stone that came with the razor, moving it back and forth, however i have read posts on here that you can hone it on normal stones by sliding it back and forth in the same fashion as a normal straight blade, im not an expert on this though so id suggest having a read on here about doing that. I found that a good couple passes on the stone it came with tends to keep mine nice and sharp.

hope this helps
kris

The strop is actually curling out so it lifts out with ease (it's toast it would seem) Now I just need to find the proper leather to replace it with. As I said the stone is in great shape, I just need to use a more aggressive stone first to really get the blade to the point where a few passes with the fine hone will keep it perfect then I can try shaving with it. (Right now it won't even cut arm hair)

Just use your normal hones to bring it back up to par. Just be careful with rotating the blade on the fullsize hones. Don't harm yourself or the blade/hones. As for leather, just measure the thickness of the original and try to find a smooth bit of bovine to replace it with in the same (or similar) thickness.


Mick

Wow, what a razor! You sure are adventurous!

Originally Posted by mbwhoosh

I own and use a rolls razor and can say honestly that it is a very good shaver. As goshawk already mentioned the hone and strop mechanism are very short and meant to upkeep an already sharp blade not bring a dull one back to life.

Never a truer word said. If the blade is dulled, no amount of time on the built-in hone, never mind its strop will get the bevel acceptable. So you have to resort to your stones. I picked up an extremely valuable piece of information some time ago, hopefully here at SRP, on a way to do this.

With the guard unclipped and set aside, a chopstick with its point whittled to fit tightly into the blade's securing aperture, provides a great handle with which to push along your various stones. I have found that the best thing to do is rest the middle finger on your free hand on top of the blade to keep it flat to the stone and help guide it. It's a bit laborious because whilst flipping the blade over onto the other face presents no problems at all, reverse honing as you would normally with a straight edge, can be a bit too stop-start. Pretty easy, but I have yet to find an acceptable way of applying a Rolls blade to an ordinary strop; I would be sure to nick an expensive piece of equipment bought for my straights, so up to now I have only held the blade in some small long-nosed electrical pliers and stropped on some old heavy denim, before re-attaching the guide and using the Rolls stropping mechanism.

Once you have got to an acceptable sharpness, it's true the razor's own mechanisms will keep it in good order indefinitely. However, Rolls were most implicit about never using water or Heaven forbid, oil on their hone, only ever using it completely dry.

They are fascinating inventions. I have two Imperial No.2's and one Viscount, which I notice is the model displayed in the first post. I cannot kid myself that I can get as close as I can with a Gillette butterfly with a brand new DE, but if shipwrecked (!) with one razor, one blade and NO MIRROR, just a reflection in a lagoon to shave by, what would your choice be? Someone would kill you for your Rolls!