Thread: mix and matching parts for straight razor

Not sure if I posted this in the right place or not but I've been looking for a straight razor with stag scales or possibly cow bone or buffalo horn scales but it seems like most are pretty pricey to get a nice looking good quality one. So I started thinking bout looking on ebay for one of them cheap razors that don't keep an edge that you can't shave with or a cheap vintage one with a terrible blade that has one of them kinda scales. Then get a sight unseen or flawed razor from whippeddog or find one with a decent blade but broken scales for cheap and taking the good scales that were on bad blade and put them on the good blade. In turn you would have a decent looking razor with good quality blade on the cheaper side. This would be my first restoration project (not sure you would call it a restoration?) and am just asking for your guys opinions if this sounds like a good idea or just doing extra work and not really getting a good looking quality razor for less money.

I don't think I've ever seen vintage stag scales on a razor , I might have seen it on a restored one, the cheap pakistani razors tend to have very bulky scales so if I were to use one of those I'd thin them out on the beltgrinder and sand and polish them before putting them on a decent blade but then you might as well make your own scales from a horn slab(and I wouldn't want to give any money to people who make razors that don't shave).

Finding a broken blade with salvagable horn scales or buying a horn/stag slab that you can make scales out of sounds like good ideas to me.

A thing to remember if you want to save a pair of old horn scales is that soaking old dried up horn in neatsfoot oil for about a week does wonders for it and after that you can sand and polish it up to look good as new unless it's got a too many bug bites.

Where are you from by the way? if you're in the states you might want to check out masecraft, they have a varied assortment of materials to chose from and I wouldn't be surprised if they have stag horn, if you're in Europe you could look up an Ebay seller called robsbits, I 've bought all my horn and MOP from him and would definitely recommend doing business with him.

Alot of the case razors from the 60s had stag scales,IMO were all very heavy and unbalanced.