I was asked to restore BiscuitCookie's 5 razors, which used to be his great grandfather's. Following 10Pups's recent example, I'll be making pictures and posting my progress in this thread :)
The razors:
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The top two have been honeda lot. Especially the razor at the top, which used to have two lines of text etched into it, of which little more than one line is left. The top two also have wooden scales made by BiscuitCookie's great grandfather. If I can, I will keep these scales and just restore the blades, as we thought it would be nice to save the original handwork. I'm not sure if they'll shave again.
The third razor is obviously naked. It's a wedge, but I fear the black patina in the middle has rotten all the way through regardless and it will not shave again. I will clean it up and give it some new clothes, it will still make a nice collection piece.
The bottom two appear to be in reasonably good shape. Mostly surface rust and the scales look dirty but good. Unpin, sand and clean thoroughly, repin and hone.
As an indication, here are four blades I worked on recently. The first two had a lot of patina. I left most of it on the first one, a Heljestrand, and sanded away a lot on the GB anchor next to it. The third razor, a Walter Witte from Rotterdam (where my girlfriend is born) was in pretty good shape, it only has minor spots left that my phone camera didn't catch.
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The fourth one, a Fänger, is a recent acquisition. The patina went just a little deeper than the Walter Witte and as I sanded only at 400 grit greaseless, it left shallow marks. The tang cleaned up really nicely, though, and it is waiting to get some new scales. I may try my first inlay transfer on this razor, but it will have to wait for the other five. Again, simple phone pictures, I tried to make the old patina marks as visible as I could.
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Tonight, I plan on unpinning the five razors and doing a first 400 grit greaseless buff to see what's underneath the surface rust.
Thanks for watching!