Thread: 8/8 Wade & Butcher The Celebrated Hollow Ground Razor

Originally Posted by Badgister

Nice find Joel! I think you will feel more satisfaction if you honed it yourself no? if you like, I could gladly help you put a nice edge on it, gratis!

I had restored a similar one 4 years ago. I prefer a light restoration on these.

I would definitely take you up on that! Thanks! Will you be at the meet Saturday? We could talk more about it then.

Yes, I would definitely prefer to do it myself! However I rarely find time to work on razors these days, so after a certain amount of time I get impatient to shave with my razors....

As many of you have said, it would be easy to clean up and hone as is, which I will probably do. But the rust around the pivot pin definitely needs to be taken care of sooner than later.

I will be at the meet. Bring it with you.

I cleaned up this razor today. I had to go down to 1000 grit sandpaper to get the rust out, which isn't too bad. Then I went to 2000 grit, then 0000 steel wool, then metal polish. I like the patina, I'm going to leave the blade as is.

I had honed it up the other day. Up to an 8k Naniwa, then a quick finish on a thuri, just to see if it would take an edge. There's a very slight warp in the blade, but nothing a gentle rolling X stroke couldn't handle, and it took an edge very easily. Now that it's cleaned up a bit I'll take it up to 12k and see how it goes.

The only problem is the scales. I discovered that not only are they warped (which doesn't really bother me), but they're dry and flaking/cracking on the inside. The last photo shows the warp, but I doubt you'll be able to see the cracking. I'm wondering if the scales can be salvaged or not. I still have never gotten around to learning how to fix up scales, and I don't have the tools, so I'd probably need to send the razor out to get the scales fixed (or get new scales).

That is a gorgeous WB Celebrated, Joel. I agree that the blade looks great as is. There are multiple guys on this forum who have saved horn scales in far worse shape than this. I have been learning a lot of late by putting search terms in the Workshop and just reading the threads. I bet that is one you could do yourself with a little guidance from our horn gurus like Mike, Tom, Karl and others.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

That is a gorgeous WB Celebrated, Joel. I agree that the blade looks great as is. There are multiple guys on this forum who have saved horn scales in far worse shape than this. I have been learning a lot of late by putting search terms in the Workshop and just reading the threads. I bet that is one you could do yourself with a little guidance from our horn gurus like Mike, Tom, Karl and others.

Yes, I've been looking into it a bit, and I think I'll at least try and salvage them myself with steam and some neatsfoot oil. Worst case scenario, I'll ruin the scales and need to get new ones.

No such thing as ruining a set. That set requires minimal work, in comparison to some that I've salvaged.

A clothes iron will have them flat in minutes.
Make your repairs first, then soak in neats foot.





You've got yourself a fine specimen, there.

Nice resto on the blade. The scales are in good shape, if you don’t mind the big bite you can have those straight in less time than it would take to boil water in a tea kettle.

Boil some water in a tea kettle and leave the spout open, grab something that spread the scales apart a little farther than you want them to and hold it over the steam for a minute, just repeat until you like the way work, a little neats foot soak and you’re done.

If that’s the blade I saw on there a couple days ago, you paid a 1/3 what it’s worth. Happy shaving!

I got this for an incredibly low amount for what it is. There were two on auction from the same seller but the other one looked like it had a crack in the blade, but it sold for almost 4 times what I paid for this. I lucked out!

I steamed the scales tonight. I got them to separate, which is a start, but they're still not quite straight. The blade isn't quite centered. But this proves that the scales are most definitely salvageable!

I keep forgetting about the sideways photos. Sorry everybody!