Thread: My first restoration

Well, I just finished my first restoration. I aimed low for my first razor and hence there's not a huge amount of work done on this. It's already pre-ordered by a friend of mine who's getting into straights - I'll give it to him once I'm happy with the edge on it.

Sadly no "before" photo's, but it's a 6/8 Cadman & Sons Bengall, full hollow grind with round point, very little hone wear and no chips. Synthetic scales with 'Bengall' logo. The blade had some etching but when it arrived it had some pretty deep rust which took a lot of sanding.

I sanded the blade with 400, 800, 1200, 1500 wet and dry paper over 3 evenings, and then used a felt wheel on my dremel with some brown polishing compound. It came up pretty shiny although there's a fair amount of staining left over from the rust, it looks better in real life than in the photo. It would take a fair amount of work to get this looking perfect, but my friend is going to use it as a daily shaver so he doesn't want me going overboard on it.

I've done two pyramids on it so far with a test shave between them, it's just about shave ready now but it feels a little dull still. I'm going to shave with it tomorrow morning then maybe another pyramid or two tomorrow night.