Thread: Genco Straight Razors

You can easily clean this up yourself if you wish and then simply send it out to be honed.

Thanks for the advice everyone! I'll get some metal polish and maybe even try repinning myself.

Lynn,
I have a Geneva made about 1920 with a 6/8 blade. You just returned it from honing last week. Shaves nice. Only my 2nd month into the straight razor so setting a bevel is still beyond me.
Thanks for the fine work
Karl

PS: I asked Santa for some Nortons and a DMT 325

Originally Posted by Nphocus

Pinklather does wonders with honing gencos and his pricing is very reasonable... I vouch for his work. MAAS and a rag will do wonders with that blade.

I'll second that about Pinklather's honing. He's overly modest about it.

Look for Floppyshoes' Pinning Guide for Engineers in the Wiki or in the Restoration forum. It's a very well written set of instructions. Pinning is pretty easy, actually. Practice first on two thin pieces of wood--if you can join them pretty firmly without banging them up, you're clear to go on your razor. The force needed to deform the end of the pin is less than it takes to cause discomfort if you hammer the base of your thumbnail. For a peening hammer, you can get a cheap small one in the jewelry section of a craft store, or you could probably use a 1" ball bearing.

Good luck--that should be a fine blade for you.

Oh wow, a ball bearing is enough? Good to know, I would have hit it way too hard. Also good advice about joining wood first, I've probably got a few popsicle sticks laying around that need to be stuck together. I'll hire Pinklather to work his magic; the blade is nearly sharp so I imagine this will just need a touch-up.

I recently honed a 9/16 Genco for the local barber college--took a sharper-than-shavette edge off of the Oozuku w/o too much work. THe instructor liked it so much, he gave me a free bottle of Osage Rub! Test shave was phenomenal--I really hated to give that razor back!

I have a destroyed Genco...I don't think it'll ever be shave ready again. It came in a lot, and I was pretty happy to see it, but the damage was just too much. Then it probably didn't help that I had no clue what I was doing, and pretty much ground it to nothing...I'm still a little torn up about it. On the upside, that little Genco proved you guys right on several occassions. Don't use a grinding wheel, don't use a rotary tool as a noob, don't buy a rusted out pile of awesome expecting the awesome to stay on and the rust to fall off, etc. I sure wish it would have pulled through though.

Originally Posted by regularjoe

I have a destroyed Genco...I don't think it'll ever be shave ready again.

Well I've never,ever done that. Not much at least
Don't worry. Learning consists of apparent mistakes but it's just a process of finding limitations.

Honed up a Gold Seal this evening that's the most hollow razor I've ever touched. dial calipers 1/8" above the edge measured .005" (Satinedges have been .0075). 'Can't wait to try the shave.

Seems you're saying there might still be hope. Well, I've done everything else to it. May as well put it in some scales and give it a shot.