Thread: My Great Grandfather's Kropp

Thank you for all your information.

I have started a few other threads if you would like to read them.

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...imum-loss.html

http://straightrazorpalace.com/razor...-scales-2.html

http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...compounds.html

As I have said multile times before, SA is not like the rest of the world. our car paint places dont do the quality of work that re rest of the world does. And I phoned mutiple places, and they didnt have. Saint Gobain, Bulldog abrasives, Palm Court Paints, and Alberante Autospary didnt have, but I found a guy at 3M that gave me free samples after I told him what I want to do. Altough 3M SA dont really stock it they import it for the odd customer. So with that I might be sorted. Now I am looking for brass pins. And a jewellers anvil, and I want to import some scale slabs from sheffield supply. As far as honing goes, my dad told me how he used to make his own hones using thick glass, honing oil and diamond powder(he works and a diamond polisher and cutter), so he has ample supply of diamond powder.

But what I want to get accross is, SA is in no way anythingnlike the USA or the UK. we have a very limited product range, so take my word if I say I cant find something, because I would have looked in every nook and cranny throughout SA.

Originally Posted by RazorFang

But what I want to get accross is, SA is in no way anythingnlike the USA or the UK. we have a very limited product range, so take my word if I say I cant find something, because I would have looked in every nook and cranny throughout SA.

For what it's worth, I have several friends who grew up in various parts of Africa, including Johannesburg. What's more, we have guys here in the U.S. who say "I've looked all over for X and can't find it anywhere." and then someone suggests, "Have you tried S-Mart?" and low and behold S-Mart is just down the road, but the thought never occurred to look there. This is particularly frequent with high grit sand paper.

I know it's frustrating when it seems as though people aren't listening to what you're saying, but you're asking for help from the collective experience, and the collective experience is that guys don't always know where to look or all of the nooks and crannies out there.

Best of luck.

Let me take brass pins for scale replacement for instance. I have phoned 33 different companies today, and all of them have BRASS PLATED pins, but no, brass pins. Once something has become an accepted standard, the rest falls away(i.e. solid brass being replaced by brass plated). I phone builders hardware, builder hardware express, mica, mega mica, jacks paint, the paint spot, the craft market, heavin forge, knife tools and machines SA, herbst knives, the gold anvil, gold traders south africa, cajees watches, dragon glass, and old ben's (which is a little hardware store in the middle of no where in sweizer reineke (which is 800kms from where I stay) that I stumbled upon once bundu bashing and they had some odd finds) to name a few, and no-one has, so what do I again have to resort to? Importing them from US or UK, and having to pay close to 100% income tax, if not more.

I have made a list of all the fanchise hardware stores, all the big wholesalers(like Game, Makro, Deons, Hyperama, Pick and Pay) which is owned by MassMart(the SA equivalent of WholeMart(soon to be acquired by Wholemart), and all the smaller stores, from Gauteng(my province) to Mapumalanga, to Bloemfontein, with numbers, so I go through the whole list(if I feel like it) when I need something(like brass pins, or a jeweller's anvil). So take it from me when I say, if you are in SA, good luck!

To quote one of the other South African members that I have spoken to:

Yeah it's a tough hobby to be into here in SA as we don't have ANYTHING here...
I've never come across that high grit paper anywhere and I had to ultimately just purchase my hones online and have it shipped here.

I'm sorry if I have come accross to be rude, I don't mean to be insulting or rude in any way, but there is a reason for my frustration, I have had it ever since I decided to start having hobbies. Whether it RC racing, Chain Mailling, Razor Restoring, Bonsai Trees(which is the least frustrating, apart from my desire for a Chinese Maple Tree that cant live in South Africa), or wanting to work on my Mazda Protege, i always have the same problem.

Ok,to put it like this:

I have:
A razor.
The 3M equivalent of micro mesh Micro Mesh.
Rubbing compounds.

I need:
A jewellers anvil.
Brass Pins.
Hones.
Scale Material(preferably polyester slabs)

I can get:
A hammer and polish it.
A Dremel(but I won't, they are to damn expensive)
Scale Material(like wood and bone, and some carbon fibre slabs)

I can make:
A jewellers hammer(as stated above)
My own hones(using glass, and diamond powder, whic I get from my father).

So the things in the "I need" list is thing I will more than likely have to import, and they are only pertaining to this particular hobby.

Ok, let me put it like this. My longest running hobby is chain mailing, I have been doing it for 7 years. 2 years after I started and make a few things, I learnt about anodized aluminium jump rings. I searched thoughout SA for them for another 2 years, no success, atfer which I consulted my trusted source, namely Steward from Dragon glass which has been doing chain mailing for 30+ years, and he said, you'd spend less timr opening up your own anodising plant and making them yourself than you would searching for them. There is 1 (one) company that does aluminium anodising in south africa, and they do copper plating and UV proofing. So finally I gave up, got fed up, and ordered from theringlord.com. Then after recieving them and marring the hell out of the first two jump rings with my pliers, it hit me that I will need some protective pliers. A further year passes searching for them in SA, found one company that sells flat nose nylon jaw pliers, but I need chain nose pliers, and their suppliers cant help me out, so I made several attempts at making my own by gluing shaped pieces of nylon to needle nose pliers using q-bond, and yesterday I gave up and ordered two pairs of BeadSmith chain nose pliers for the UK...see what I mean? A month from now I will be able to go on with something I that grabbed my attention 3 years ago, and not one thing was obtained in South Africa.