Thread: Who knew? My grandfather used a Henkels!

Edit: Whoops. That title should read "Henckels"...

I just returned from visiting my parents in Florida and was telling them about getting into straight razor shaving. By "getting into," see my first shave post/intro. I told them I probably wouldn't shave again until I got a strop and proper cream. My mom responds, "Well, I know where your grandfather's strop is. I'll find it when we get home." They moved down to FL to live with my grandmother and it's the same house my dad grew up in ~60 years ago!

Well, she found that strop alright. Actually, two of them:



I ran into my attachment limit for this post; here's two more pics:
- Close up front
- The backs, showing cloth on one and some sort of rough leather dotted strop on the other

These haven't been used in quite some time. I'd be interested in recommendations on how to refurbish them for use. The darker one, for example, has a reasonably sized gouge in the edge. There's also some cracking here and there. I was thinking mink oil to start just softening the leather and perhaps sanding away some of the bigger defects. Here's a shot that lets the lighting show the worn off shiny sections of the strop as well as the gouge.



Here's an image showing the cracking in the rough leather side of one of the strops.

Guess what else? In addition to the strops, my mom found straight razors, too!



The first is a Henkels in incredible shape. My grandfather died in 1988. Who knows when he last used this, but it looks like it could have been quite recently. One side shows the Henkels logo and reads "Platinum, Carbon Steel Blade, Reg US Pat Off" and the other, "J.A.Henkels Twin Works, Solingen-Germany, 401."



The other blade isn't in quite the shape of the first, but amazingly the rust has kept almost entirely to the spine. One side reads, "Adoration Blue Steel" and a number. Perhaps 166? The other side was a bit obscured by rust, but some ebay posts helped complete the name: "Giesen & Forsthoff, Solingen-Germany." The scales read "Adoration Hand Forged."



I was planning on trying electrolysis on this blade. I could use abrasives, but think electrolysis will be more targeting of the rust and gentler overall. I can use finer abrasives later once the rust is gone and I can see what pitting there might be. The tang is actually blued and I'd be bummed to lose that, but I can't see that grinding on it would be any more gentle than electrolysis. Thoughts on this?

For my last goodie... I recalled finding a double edged safety razor down there as a kid. I used to visit my grandma most summers and knew I pretend shaved with a DE one year when I was something like eight or ten. Well, we were able to dig that up too! Not in mint condition, but quite nice nonetheless. Most things just appear to be discolored; the plating doesn't appear to be worn through anywhere that I saw. I scrubbed at it with some toothpaste and and old toothbrush.



From my searching, this is either a silver Aristocrat (looks really similar to the gold one on this site -- scroll down to the "Return of the Aristocrat" section) or a Super Speed, or a "Slim" adjustable TTO. The H3 stamp on the bottom dates it to 1962. As it turns out, this wasn't my grandfather's like I thought... my dad recounted that this one was for my grandmother's legs every Saturday evening! My face didn't know the difference.

So, quite the vacation trip with lots of neat finds and neat artifacts of history. I used the DE this morning on ~6 days of growth and it worked wonderfully with blades that were who knows how old (the Gillettes shown in the pic).

Thanks for following along.

A wonderful set of gear!

FWIW:

a) the 'Adoration' is probably going to clean up nicely -- the vintage G&F razors ("Adoration Axe", and others) have a very good reputation (I own one). Same with the Henckels.

b) I wouldn't worry about the nick in the edge of the strop. I _would_ worry about cracks and "not flat" -- cupping, bowing, that kind of thing. Neats-foot oil would soften the leather, but use just a little bit to start with -- it's easy to over-do it.

Have fun --

Charles

PS -- you might want to get an inexpensive strop to use while you learn to strop. You _will_ damage your first strop!

Nice finds!!
The Henckels will clean up nice as will the light colored Russian strop, go to a shoe/leather repair store or a sporting goods store and look for Neatsfoot oil, that's the best on strops (mink oil will work)

The safety razor looks to be a slim adjustable and should work very well, a spray of Scrubbing Bubbles and a toothbrush will get it very nice followed by a metal polish such as Blue Magic or Maas etc will get it looking great. After the cleaning a small drop of very light oil down the inside will protect it

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

A wonderful set of gear!

FWIW:

a) the 'Adoration' is probably going to clean up nicely -- the vintage G&F razors ("Adoration Axe", and others) have a very good reputation (I own one). Same with the Henckels.

b) I wouldn't worry about the nick in the edge of the strop. I _would_ worry about cracks and "not flat" -- cupping, bowing, that kind of thing. Neats-foot oil would soften the leather, but use just a little bit to start with -- it's easy to over-do it.

Have fun --

Charles

PS -- you might want to get an inexpensive strop to use while you learn to strop. You _will_ damage your first strop!

Now dont say that not everyone ruins there first strop im still using my first strop and i dont have as much as a knick or tiny slice in it. its all about how you care for it if you take the time to learn the feel of the raozr and the strop. start stropping slow and pay full attention to what you are doing and before you know it you will be stropping like its second nature. good luck restoring those strops and i hope you enjoy your family heirlooms.

Originally Posted by rodb

The safety razor looks to be a slim adjustable

+1 That is an adjustable slim.


Edit to add: I wouldn't use mink oil on the strops - for some reason it has a tendency to leave a residue that makes them feel sticky when you actually strop on them. Neatsfoot oil is definitely the way to go. If the oil is very very dry, Obenauf's can be good too. It can oversoften the leather pretty quickly though.

From the pictures - I think I would start with a light coating of neatsfoot to hydrate the leather and prevent further cracking as you work it. The surface of the darker one is going to need some sanding. After you sand - gently oil the leather again if needed, and burnish the surface with glass.

JW, my thoughts;
Unless you are really skilled at restoration of razors, I would send those family razors out to one of the professionals on the forum. Yes, it might cost, but those razors have history.
I got started by sending my grandfather's razor out & I'm glad I did.

Those are two beautiful razors. Thanks for sharing.

Congrats on the heirloom finds! Be careful with these, they cannot be replaced at any price.
You have been given good advice on both the razors ( send them out for restoration) and the strops ( a light coating of
neets foot oil after you have sanded the surface down).

May I suggest that you use a different razor to start with and a beginners strop?

Thanks for the advice all!

- Neatsfoot it is. I may use oil and then use books or a 2x4 with weight to ensure flatness
- I'll definitely consider getting the beginner's Whipped Dog strop anyway and keeping these for later
- I have a beginner's razor I got from robd that I'll actually be using; I don't plan to use these for some time
- The Henkels should only need a nice polishing and honing. I'll think more about what to do with the other one -- thanks for the caution.

Just wanted to post an update. Finally made it to Tandy Leather and got some Neatsfoot oil. Haven't applied it yet. Kind of tied up with my other restoration job... I also got the scales off of the rusted razor. I thought I'd replace the scales anyway as one was pretty badly bent when I got it and the blade wasn't centered. I have been using electrolysis to slowly remove the rust and it's working fantastically. Two multi-hour sessions later it's really getting close.

Some have posted in other threads about not seeing why one would use electrolysis since you have to sand eventually anyway. In other words, it doesn't spare any of the long, laborious work by itself. For me, it's because sanding uses random scratch patterns to remove material. If you sand rust, you necessarily sand some of the surrounding good material until your random cuts have scratched all the rust off.

Electrolysis doesn't remove any good material; it only targets the rust. Once the rust is gone, I'll use higher grit (say, 4-600 and up) abrasive to all of the metal. Fine abrasive isn't wasted on rust for the sake or sparing the good metal, and good metal isn't wasted on course grits for the sake of removing rust faster. Win-win in my mind.

I'll post pictures of the blade in it's intermediate state as well as of my electrolysis setup. I'm using an old Macbook charger, a mason jar, two door hinge pins, some speaker wire, electrical tape, and a dash of baking soda. Cost: $0; all stuff I already had laying around.