My Dream Blade...Can I Save the Etching?

I have wanted an old Greaves wedge with blonde horn scales for a while, and finally got one. It has a beautiful etching on the blade that I would like to save all the while making it shine again. I have only worked with clean blades and blades with stamped words, so this will be the first time with this type of etching.

What techniques will safely remove the crud while preserving the etching? I have up to 2000 grit sandpaper, all types of lapping film, red and green polishing compound, and metal glo. The last thing I want to do is remove the etching by starting with something too aggressive. I would appreciate some guidance from those of you who are more experienced. :tu

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Hand polishing only I think
But I will watch and learn also for this trick

I'm no expert, but I'd say you can have a shiny blade with no etching, or a not shiny with an etching. IMHO if you take sandpaper to it, no matter how fine, you'll degrade the etching, and by the time you get past the corrosion, you'll have lost it.

Years ago I bought a Winchester M-97 shotgun from a pawn shop. Original blue was still good, but a patina of light rust on the barrel. The old guy who sold it to me, must have been at least 50 ...... :rolleyes: ......told me that if I took Break Free and 0000 steel wool. Spray the metal with a thin coat and lightly, like stroking a baby or a cat, rub the metal one way, not back and forth.

He said if I did it right I'd remove the rust without taking off the blue. With that blade I imagine you could apply more pressure than I could with that blued barrel. Anyway, I followed his advice. Another thing he suggested was not to try to get it all in a sitting.

Five minutes, ten minutes at a time. That was to avoid frustration which might induce more pressure. On that blued barrel that would have been bright metal in a hurry. Anyway, I don't know if that will do it for you, but might be worth a try. :gl:

In a situation like this I revert to a chemical rust remover (i use Evapo Rust) and a totally non abrasive metal polish such as blue magic. I think those are your only hope of saving the etch. Even if you skip the evapo rust or any other chemical (even vinegar and baking soda & salt etc) I would use a non abrasive polish only like a blue magic. I think those are your best bet.
I dont like using even evapo rust, which is 100% ph neutral and organic, to soak my razors. These rust removers seem to "change" the outer layers of the steel to some degree and they dont seem to always polish out as nice. I have , however, found it combined with the blue magic yields some very good results. Several polishing are required using the blue magic.
I wish you the best of luck. All you can do is proceed with care and you may have to settle for a happy medium, etch still visible with a satin type sheen as opposed to a mirror polish. Either way I think you can be very happy with your find!

Thanks for the help guys! I am certainly going to take my time with this one, and try the above techniques. Probably going to remove the scales and clean them up a bit as well. I am definitely ok with it showing its age as that is part of why it's so darn cool. I hope to post after pics when I'm done. Might be a while though, since I'm working 80+ hours/week until May.:banghead:

I just had a quick look but did not find it, but Geezer recently had a thread on this very subject. Perhaps someone can find it for us.

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Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I'm no expert, but I'd say you can have a shiny blade with no etching, or a not shiny with an etching. IMHO if you take sandpaper to it, no matter how fine, you'll degrade the etching, and by the time you get past the corrosion, you'll have lost it.

Years ago I bought a Winchester M-97 shotgun from a pawn shop. Original blue was still good, but a patina of light rust on the barrel. The old guy who sold it to me, must have been at least 50 ...... :rolleyes: ......told me that if I took Break Free and 0000 steel wool. Spray the metal with a thin coat and lightly, like stroking a baby or a cat, rub the metal one way, not back and forth.

He said if I did it right I'd remove the rust without taking off the blue. With that blade I imagine you could apply more pressure than I could with that blued barrel. Anyway, I followed his advice. Another thing he suggested was not to try to get it all in a sitting.

Five minutes, ten minutes at a time. That was to avoid frustration which might induce more pressure. On that blued barrel that would have been bright metal in a hurry. Anyway, I don't know if that will do it for you, but might be worth a try. :gl:

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OLD GUY 50 ARE YOU KIDDING ME:aargh:

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Originally Posted by rhensley

OLD GUY 50 ARE YOU KIDDING ME:aargh:

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I was early 40s then ......... 66 now. Back then he was old to me, now I know he was still wet behind the ears ........... :)

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Originally Posted by RezDog

I just had a quick look but did not find it, but Geezer recently had a thread on this very subject. Perhaps someone can find it for us.

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http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...-etchings.html

You da man Ed. I was way off in my search wording.

That is a very old blade, with a nice etch. If it was me I would not do anything to it, until you are absolutely positive how to proceed and do the least damage to the etching.

Once you start removing steel, you can never put it back on.

You might want to contact Voidmonster, he is an avid pre 1900 razor collector and has been researching how to restore and re-etch, very old etching.

Nice find,

So I had an old peerless that had some great gold etching on it but I could not for the life of me get near the minor rusting. I cleaned out the pin holes and the tang as much as I could and then just used the razor on a regular basis. It is now nice and shiny and there are small rust marks but they are disappearing. It seems that using the razor worked for me.