Thread: Antique store finds: Rust stoppage?

I have bought two razors at antique stores this summer, an Allen and Sons NONXLL and a Wolstenholm Pipe Razor. The Allen razor will be a practice razor and the Wostenholm will go into the shave rotation. The Pipe Razor has a small patch of rust on the edge and some on the tang under the pivot pin. These razors will be put away untilI have a good idea of what I am doing restoration-wise.

Here is my question: What is a quick way to knock off some of the rust to prevent further damage?

I'm sure there's any number of good things people will suggest to do it. If you have some transmission fluid in the garage, I'd say give it a good wipe down, let it sit for a while, lather rinse repeat until you've got the active rust off and then it shouldn't rust anymore for a while.

I don't know how well it will work with rust that old and set in but it's worth a try. I have a new razor that occasionally gets a few rust spots and figured out by accident that after leaving it in a cup of barbercide for 10 minutes or so the rust is gone.

Before jumping into chemical solutions, you can try simply physically removing the rust. A SE razor blade (or a DE with the other edge dulled/taped to protect your fingers) works great to scrape active (red) rust. Wet/dry sandpaper, steel wool... lots of things can help deal with rust like that. For the tough to reach areas, as well as smaller spots, something as simple as a pencil can really help too. Just take your pencil and scribble over the rusted area. Quite often that will help.

And BTW, depending on what kind of shape the actual edge is in, that little Allen could be a great shaver. So don't give up in it just yet.

Good luck

That sounds like better advise..also forgot to mention my scales are plastic..wouldn't recommend barbercide for any other material scale.

Nice find. Would love to see some before and after photos once you get done.

+1 on the Allen, it looks very saveable with minimal hone ware, will be a shaver, same for the Pipe.

The pipe really needs to be unpinned and rust completely removed. If not the rust will come back and if it has not already, will eat at the pivot pin hole and enlarge it. Both of these are not deal breakers and you could get many more serviceable years out of it with just a little rust maintenance and if you keep the pivot and tang dry.

As said, cut off as much of the rust as possible with a single edge razor blade. There are plastic single edge blade holders that make it much easier on the fingers. Scrape/Cut off as much rust as possible.

To get between the scales at the pivot grind down a knife blade or find a piece of spring steel from a street sweeper. You can find them in the curbing after street sweeping days. Square and hone an edge on one end with a diamond plate and scrape the rust off the tang. Then whittle the tip of a bamboo chopstick to the width of the tang and dab the end in metal polish and burnish the steel. Buff with a paper towel.

You can get it to look pretty good without unpinning, but it is almost as much work if not more than unpinning, buffing and repining… and rust will come back until you completely remove it.

Unpinning and repining is really not that difficult, the difficult is in making it look good without sanding and buffing. Worst case is you have to re-do it. It’s called “Practice". Lots of good video and instruction on how to are available.

Yeah, I have been watching some of the videos here in the Workshop. I plan on replacing the scales on the Wostenholm so might as well unpin and remove rust now, hopefully this week.

WD40........ nuff said.

Not nessiarly, here is a gorgeous old hand carved bone scaled Clauss, that has a broken scale tip just above the pivot. When I got it there was no hone wear on the spine and the edge un-honed. I suspect someone dropped it when new, broke the scale and it sat its whole life unused.. Until it came to me.

I know I will never match the carved bone scale if I was to replace it, one day I will rescale it but I love those scales and it works just fine. Many of my razors have character of imperfection and I leave them as such. Not all are pristine, shiny restorations, none are display queens. They all see rotation.

So while I do believe your Pipe needs re-scaleing or at least unpinning and cleaning, a chipped scale is not the end of usefulness of a razor as is. Those scales are quite common and you could probably find a replacement to match the good side.