Thread: First Sheffield Razor

So today my wife and I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA to hunt down a new dresser for the bedroom (which was a success). Amidst a bunch of WWI and WWII knives lied a Frederick Reynolds straight in pretty good condition. Needless to say I bought it and brought it home to give it a dose of some metal polish to remove some light surface rust. I think I'm going to leave it with the patina look and get rescale it in Ziricote wood. Just need to fix the tiniest chip in the blade, and it should easily be a great shaver. Can anyone recommend a person or place to go in L.A. that will be able to hone it up for me? I'm not having luck with my antique finds, and I'd love to watch someone else do it and learn from the experience. Pics below of course:

Originally Posted by Bdehlin

So today my wife and I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA to hunt down a new dresser for the bedroom (which was a success). Amidst a bunch of WWI and WWII knives lied a Frederick Reynolds straight in pretty good condition. Needless to say I bought it and brought it home to give it a dose of some metal polish to remove some light surface rust. I think I'm going to leave it with the patina look and get rescale it in Ziricote wood. Just need to fix the tiniest chip in the blade, and it should easily be a great shaver. Can anyone recommend a person or place to go in L.A. that will be able to hone it up for me? I'm not having luck with my antique finds, and I'd love to watch someone else do it and learn from the experience. Pics below of course:

Lovely Fredrick! They are fantastic shavers, and nothing beats that first sheffield... Except maybe the first shave with the first Sheffield!

I don't know of anyone there, but it isn't hard to find... Got o the little toolbar at the top of the page (Forums, Classifieds, etc) and go to the Community tab... Select Member's Map, and look for members near your location... See if any of them are close enough and will show you the ropes.

Great find, Good luck!

Cheers,
Jeremy

That is a somewhat unusual Reynolds; while those scales are very common on Reynolds blades, the thumb notch and French point are not.

I have found that many Reynolds blades have very very hard steel - this is especially interesting because the main characterisc of Sheffield steel is that it tends to be softer than other razors. So, if you do indede have a hard Reynolds, she'll not shave like the typical Sheffield blade (a good reason to get another Sheffield blade, right?).

When it comes to having her honed - Someone (I think JoeD) says "Your nearest honemeister is as close as your mailbox." It's great to find someone locally, but it could very well be faster to just choose someone from the members services section of the classifieds and mail the razor out as compared to hunting down a local. And once you decide to mail your razor, the where in the country bit doesn't really matter all that much.

All that said - Great find and great razor. I hope you enjoy her to the fullest.

It would be a shame to loose those scales

Very nice find you have there.

I have many Kitchen knife buddies in LA but none of them are straight shavers (yet... I'm working on them /evil grin).

I'd hate to lose the scales as well, but they are severely pitted and cracked and I feel that they may be a loss. Maybe I'll start sanding them and see if I can salvage the things, cause I love the classic scales.

Is it the back scale that's messed up, cause the front looks fine to me.

Also, beware that if you sand them, you'll lose the coloring. That is blond horn that has been dyed to look like tortoise, so the brown is just on the surface.

Its still a great razor regardless.

Hey Bdehlin, we're doing a central CA get together toward the end of the month if you want to bring a couple razors, I can hook you up and get you shaving. PM if you're interested.

nice irish point,;love it it is unique.