Thread: Picked up another set of swirly scales and a restored A.J. Jordan

Got the swirly scales off the bay for a pretty good BIN price IMO. Got a thing for the marble/swirly scales. These have transparent areas so you can see the blade when it's closed. The blade is a 6/8 round point full hollow. It has a bit of light rust along the edge that should come out with a new bevel. There's a few areas of light rust on the spine, tang, and hollow grinds, but nothing to concerning. The tang stamp is Sheffield Cutlery Co. on the front and Selected Sheffield Steel $400 on the back. The Sheffield Cutlery Co. was established in 1898 and still produces cutlery products. No idea when this particular razor was produced. The pivot pin appears to be collarless, with small collars on the wedge pin. Initially I'm thinking a little steel wool, some polish, and some time on the stones is all this will need to start shaving again.

Front of the Sheffield Cutlery


Rear of the Sheffield Cutlery


I also picked up an A.J. Jordan "The Celebrated Hollow Ground Razor" from Ebay with a 5/8 barber notch blade. The blade grind is pretty close to a wedge, not much of a hollow grind. This one was restored to Shave ready by SRP member Boushie and still has a bit of it's age showing. I've got another A.J. Jordan with a 5/8 full hollow and really like the steel. This is also a second restore I've acquired from Boushie. I was quite pleased with the first and fully expect this one to shave nicely as well.

Front of the Jordan


Rear and tip of the Jordan

Good show and nice razors, Jelly-Bouschie/Leonard puts some crazy good deals up on our BST. I've snagged a few of his myself!

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Good show and nice razors, Jelly-Bouschie/Leonard puts some crazy good deals up on our BST. I've snagged a few of his myself!

Thanks

Yes, Bouschie does put up some crazy good deals. I also like the way he brings them back, not too much restoration. I actually felt kinda bad that no one else bid on this particular blade, I kinda feel like I stole it.

Saw some of your troubles with wood in the workshop thread, kinda bummed me out. Hope you can save some of them. I'd have posted, but I haven't used wood for scales yet, just other projects. The advice given was similar to what I was thinking about the grain direction. Thickness wise I've been matching the originals, but only horn that ranged from .0115" at the pivot to .140 at the wedge. Good luck.

Thanks Jelly-I have worked with wood to some degree for decades, but at razor scale thickness it can be very delicate around those birds-eyes and grain lines as I have demonstrated a couple of times. The good news is that I think I am resurrecting those broken scales. I've got several razor rescale projects I'm working on as the mood strikes; will report back later with the results.

The “Marble/Swirly scales” are celluloid and the rust is an indicator that it is kicking off,(Cell Rot). You can remove the rust, but it may have damaged the edge and will have trouble holding an edge, it will micro-chip.

More important it is active cell rot that can spread to other razors or steel in proximity. The problem with the Marble type scales is companies were using different formulations to get the effects and they rot at varying rates. Sometimes you get lucky if caught early and just removing the razor from the conditions that caused it to kick off will stop or slow the reaction.

But they are timebombs and you never know when they will start again. The pinning indicate they probably are not original. I would not store it with the rest of your collection, It is too bad, some of those scales were spectacular, and as far as I know no-one makes anything close.

I unpin them and rescale, though I do have a pristine Craftsman,(Notorious for Cell Rot) in original scales that showed minor signs of rot when I bought it years ago, but have not reoccurred. It is stored separate from other razors.

Originally Posted by Euclid440

The “Marble/Swirly scales” are celluloid and the rust is an indicator that it is kicking off,(Cell Rot). You can remove the rust, but it may have damaged the edge and will have trouble holding an edge, it will micro-chip.

More important it is active cell rot that can spread to other razors or steel in proximity. The problem with the Marble type scales is companies were using different formulations to get the effects and they rot at varying rates. Sometimes you get lucky if caught early and just removing the razor from the conditions that caused it to kick off will stop or slow the reaction.

But they are timebombs and you never know when they will start again. The pinning indicate they probably are not original. I would not store it with the rest of your collection, It is too bad, some of those scales were spectacular, and as far as I know no-one makes anything close.

I unpin them and rescale, though I do have a pristine Craftsman,(Notorious for Cell Rot) in original scales that showed minor signs of rot when I bought it years ago, but have not reoccurred. It is stored separate from other razors.

Always a good reminder about cell rot. So far I've been lucky with the swirls and I keep a close eye on them. I might be playing with a bit of fire, but I just really like those patterns. If they start to kick off, I'll have them out asap and look for some modern materials to re-scale with. Until then, I'm going to enjoy them as much as I can.