Thread: What are you working on?

First and Foremost, Jerry, get on the mend!

With that said, one of my buddy Ski's boys gave me two straights he'd picked up while competing in a pool tournament. (Hell if he'd just of asked I'd have given him some) Anyway they weren't in the worst shape but the one's scales had shrunk to where the blade would be hitting the pin at the toe so I put it into different scales. It did hone up really nice. The second one is done and honed but I'll give it a full shave test tomorrow.

There's oil on the blades and I didn't bother breaking out the light box and my lighting at The Boars Nest sucks. With said here's his new prizes;



Here's the toe on that one's original scales;



And the tang stamp;



Here's the second one;



And the tang stamp;



A late supper awaits--

Nice work by Ski! A good Bowdin's Wedge from Minneapolis is an American Icon! I never can find one not honed-out!
The Palmer looks in fine condition.
Great snag!

Kick that flu bug in the butt and get well soon Jerry.

Pete<:-}

Originally Posted by sharptonn

Nice work by Ski! A good Bowdin's Wedge from Minneapolis is an American Icon! I never can find one not honed-out!
The Palmer looks in fine condition.
Great snag!

Ski's son said he paid $25 for the Bowdin and $35 for the Palmer. Neither has hardly any hone wear and Both ended up with really thin and even bevels. The Bowdin did have some minor chips but probably no more than 1/32 or so of the blade was lost. (Thank you Glen for the guidance).

Tom, even though the scales have shrunk if you'd like to have them I'll gladly mail them to you. Perhaps the day will come when you find a Bowdin with little or no hone wear but broken scales or perhaps a toe that has a chunk out of it and could be shortened. Just let me know.

That's very cool. Tim is in Minneapolis.
Without a good blade, would do me no good.
Neat razor history, though!

Nice additions Roy. Gotta like a nice thin bevel without home wear.


Getting a present a ready for work my wife wants me to do. Snapped this pic to show where I am with my first section of firehose.
3 is still a little damp, but I think it still looks a little better than 2.

Bowdins are super shavers. In 1974, my first razor was a Bowdins, with white cracked ice scales, shaved with it for 10 years daily.

Maintained it on a 6-inch translucent and Illinois strop, till I dropped it, made a shorty and still have it someplace.

I'm fortunate to have a friend with all the right tools and was able to cut some blanks from a burl I cut off my cherry tree. Being as this is my first stab at making scales I wanted to do a trial run. I used a rasp I had on hand and sand paper up to 400 grit. I think the wood is gorgeous (I put some canola oil on them to bring out the color).
Here are the practice scales (figure I can use these to practice the peening and drilling) and a couple of the slabs (dampened for color) I'll probably use for the real deal. I'll probably make the scales a bit narrower than the mock up but I like the shape for the razor.
Question: do the mock ups appear too short for the blade?
Slippery slope.

Lay the blade over the top of the scale with the pivot hole about where you feel is right. From looking at the pic the length looks about perfect to me, but I like a tighter fit from blade to wedge, if going more like original type fit where the wedge and the gap to blade are generally a little longish it may be a touch too short.

The sizes looks good for the blade from afar. One of the things you may want to consider is that Burl is a little fragile, so a liner may be helpful and the eyelet style collars can take the pin stress away from the wood. There is a guy on eBay that sell nice ones, he is easy to deal with and goes by razor-handles I believe.