Restoration of 5 razors

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:
Attachment 152774
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.
Attachment 152775

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.
Attachment 152776
Attachment 152777

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!

Can't wait to see them get cleaned up.

BTW they're my great grandfather's not my grandfather's.

Be SURE to scrape off as much rust as you can FIRST.
BEFORE buffing with the 400.
Otherwise you can make that rust a MO FO to get off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chevhead

Be SURE to scrape off as much rust as you can FIRST.
BEFORE buffing with the 400.
Otherwise you can make that rust a MO FO to get off.

---

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind! I have had no problems going straight to the 400 so far, but I don't mean to start having them with these razors.

I did a little work on the bottom razor, an ALLRIGHT silversteel.

Unpinning without damaging the scales is one of the most difficult things, IMO. I made a cross in the pin with a Dremel cut-off wheel, drilled 1 mm or so using the drill press until the washer came off and then tapped out the pin (suspended over a hole) using a nail, the latter will stay in place thanks to the drilling hole.

Attachment 152861

I started out with cleaning the scales. Scraped some of the dirt off and buffed. This is halfway through the first scale, and how the blade came out of the scales:

Attachment 152862

Done buffing the scales, and a look of the other side of the blade:

Attachment 152863

Following Chevhead's advice, I scraped off most of the rust and then moved to 400 grit greaseless to remove surface rust. The previous owner appears to have sanded it from heel to toe, and there's some normal pitting.

Attachment 152864

On to 80 grit greaseless. Most of the patina is gone, but some shallow pitting remains. I don't know if I should further sand that down, as I fear I will make it too thin. I also rounded off the heel a little to prevent honing problems. Lighting/angle were chosen to reveal as much of the pitting as I could.

Attachment 152865
Attachment 152866

I would like to hear your opinions: should I continue sanding away with the risk of thinning the blade too much, or shall I leave it and move up the grits?

I'm intrigued that you started with 400 grit and then went down to 80 - firstly because 80 seems to be very harsh but also, why go down when you would need to go back up again to remeove scratch marks?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by UKRob

I'm intrigued that you started with 400 grit and then went down to 80 - firstly because 80 seems to be very harsh but also, why go down when you would need to go back up again to remeove scratch marks?

---

Just to get a clearer view of the patina and see if there was any need to take it down to 80. The 400 grit removed much of the surface rust, while leaving the metal mostly unharmed. If the stamps on the tang would have been too shallow, I would have left them alone. I'm sure more experienced people don't need this extra step, but I'd rather be on the safe side :) The 80 grit seems harsh, but this Satene Abrasive is actually quite gentle and useful for the removal of pitting.

If you're not comfortable with sanding and are afraid of thinning it to much don't do it unless it's needed. At least that's what I would say.

As long as it can shave comfortably it's good even if it doesn't look as shiny. (No matter how much I wold love them shiny :))

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Laurens

Just to get a clearer view of the patina and see if there was any need to take it down to 80. The 400 grit removed much of the surface rust, while leaving the metal mostly unharmed. If the stamps on the tang would have been too shallow, I would have left them alone. I'm sure more experienced people don't need this extra step, but I'd rather be on the safe side :) The 80 grit seems harsh, but this Satene Abrasive is actually quite gentle and useful for the removal of pitting.

---

OK that explains it. Personally I only go as low as 150 grit, then 300 then 400 with greaseless.

Updates! I finished the first one yesterday evening, had my first go at doming washers, following the simple steps I read in another thread.

Drill shallow hole in side of hammer and make a punch that fits inside:
Attachment 153126

Hammer the hammer with another hammer
Attachment 153127

Done :)
Attachment 153128


Here's the result. I really like the domed washers and the scales cleaned up just fine. This was the easiest honing razor I've had in my hands so far, got a good bevel in a few minutes and got the high grits right the first time.

Honing: Shapton 1-4-8-16K and unbranded Jnat with thin slurry. Great shave.
Attachment 153129
Attachment 153130
Attachment 153131
Attachment 153132
Attachment 153133
Attachment 153135

And today I've been working on the Magnetica. I'm slowly getting better at safely unpinning razors.

This one has been unpinned and repinned before, as you can see at the pivot. The etch is very thin and the tang stamps were not deep, I couldn't clear them up much.
Attachment 153140
Attachment 153141
Attachment 153142

Loving the domed washers on the other razor, I decided this one would have some as well. And then I noticed: I'm almost out of washers! Oh, calamity! Ordered right away.

The result:
Attachment 153136
Attachment 153137
Attachment 153138
Attachment 153139

Not honed yet, it won't take a bevel because of a tiny frown that needs attention first.

Nice job on the domed washers, looks good.

Nice work so far! the domed washer looks excellent.

Thanks mates :) They passed the SWMBO test, so I know they're good :o Her words were: "Oooh, nice, has he seen it yet? It looks nothing like how you received it!"

Thanks for the excellent walk-throughs, Laurens-I'm gonna try that hammer/drill/pinch technique for making domed washers!

Congratulations on finishing the two blades. Good job on cleaning it up. Shame about the pitting being to deep with he first one, but function over form is most important.
The domed washer look really cool. I could kiss you.

Keep up the good work.

Btw The last picture on the first blade you finished almost gave me an heart attack because I thought there was a chip in the blade.

I honed up the Magnetica yesterday and it did a very good job this morning :) On to the next razor! I think I'll take the naked wedge and clad her in bubinga.

So far so good with if the razors can still be used. Let's hope this one will also go nicely.

Dammit, now I have to try doming washers! They look great. Thanks for sharing your work.

impressive restores, you had your work cut out for you.

I started working on the third razor, an Alfred Williams Sheffield wedge. I feared most for the black spot in the centre that shows at both sides:

Attachment 153580
Attachment 153582

But it turned out reasonably nice :) Some of the pitting is really deep and there's even a little chunk out of the tang that only noticed when I started scraping off the rust. I did what I could and it now looks like this:

Attachment 153583

The black spot turned out to be mostly superficial, so I think this razor may yet be made to shave! Scale making will happen soon.

Yesterday I started out with making scales. The plates I cut were way too thick, so I decided to try and thin them down with the band saw, after which they were too thin. Trouble didn't end there, the razor just would not center, it was quite bad:
Attachment 154041

Put off, I got upstairs and ate a pile of pancakes. Today, I unpinned the wedge end, sanded and fitted quite a few times with little luck. I thought the blade was straight, but I decided to check the tang just once more, only this time by pressing it down on the pivot hole, not 1 cm away from it, and found this:
Attachment 154042
Attachment 154043

I decided to cheat and use one bearing washer on the inside and I'm happy to say it worked well! If you look closely, you can see it, but it's a minor thing.

Having received new washers in different sizes and being elated about the looks of the domed washers, I decided to try stacked domed washers. Well... it could have been better. I hope BiscuitCookie likes them, if not, I'll do the pinning over. They are buffed to shiny, though :)

Bubinga scales, honey horn wedge, stacked domed brass washers with brass pins. Honing is Shapton GS 1-4-8-16K and 0.5 micron diamonds and she's up for duty tomorrow morning.

Attachment 154044
Attachment 154045
Attachment 154046
Attachment 154047
Attachment 154048
Attachment 154049
Attachment 154050

The last picture shows why it wouldn't center. Looks like it either ground from one side or hammered from one side.

Started some work on the last two, scraped off surface rust and did a quick buff with metal polish. Lots of patina on these two and lots of play between the blades and the scales.

Before:
Attachment 154057
Attachment 154062
Attachment 154063

After:
Attachment 154064
Attachment 154065

Out of curiosity, I just put them on the 1K and found they both take a clean bevel. If you want, I can hone them up and see if they will shave after all! :D Note: I will need to grind down the protuding heel on the M.I. Germany.

I don't mind the heel being ground down if they can still get a good edge. Good luck.

I have finally got a good edge on the Alfred Williams. Narrow wedges are the hardest razors for me to hone. It took 4 tries before I turned an okay edge into a good edge, though admittedly not as great as the first two razors. Perhaps that's because I don't like shaving with narrow blades, I prefer wider ones.

The last two have been honed and are waiting for a shave test tomorrow morning.
The scales have been lightly sanded and oiled as per request and I tightened the pins. They don't open and close so well, because the scales are not very flexible, but at least the razors are not floppy when stropping and shaving. I have not removed the patina, for one because it would require unpinning and thereby destroying the original pins, as well as sanding down the etched letters, and because I think the history on these razors shows much better with the original scales and patina. Just my opinion of course, they are not my razors :)

@BiscuitCookie: do you have experience with straight razor shaving? You'll be needing a leather strop, brush and soap. There's the Beginner's guide to straight razor shaving - Straight Razor Place Library and I'll be happy to help you out with any questions.

I ordered some a strop set just before I sent my razors to you (Balsa wood and 1 spare strop). Brush and soap I already have because I use a DE razor.

Good to hear :) I will send all razors stropped and ready to shave. If a razor does a good job the first shave, but a poor one when you've stropped for your second shave, you know the problem is with the stropping. You shouldn't need the balsa strop the first couple of shaves. I recommend watching a few videos and practising with a butter knife.