Restore or leave as is. Newbie first time cut throater

I apologise in advance as this has probably been brought up a multitude of times.
While to me it seems like years I've been shaving, I've not even started compared to some of you guys on here.

I'm 22 and I hate having to buy week after week a replacement blades for my Gillette Pro glide![/FONTAfter some thought I remembered having an old Straight Razor, I believe given to me from my dad who found it somewhere?

Unfortunately this old girl has seen better days. Her scales? Are cracked and the blade though cleaner after a wash is rusted, slightly pitted and chipped. From what I made out its a Williams rogers I. Cut blade.

Looking around I've realised blades nice half decent blade are not cheap! But I can see the benefit in the long term as they do last a life time, if cared for.

I'm looking to see if it's worth getting her restored to as best as possible condition possibly even to be shave worthy. While I don't have at the moment a budget I do wish to keep it reasonable price. so anyone on here who themselves restores or know of people that do id love to have a chat with.


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there are no pictures in your post.

Sorry little glitch, how about now?

From what I can see in the photos your razor is turn of the century (1900 more or less). I would restore to shave ready condition and enjoy it.

I concur, turn of the 19th century.

A razor is dead when the blade is dead. Here you have a very fine blade :)

In term of restorations I don't know the prices over the Atlantic, but the scales being broken, the blade needing a little polish (I know people here love mirror polish, I deem it too much for such a blade, personnal opinion)...

Let's see, how would I do it on a budget...
- New set of scales, synthetic material ~ 10-20$ (often sold with pins) + ball point hammer (no idea)
- WD40 and a carbon steel knife to remove any rest of rust
- Slightly abrasive soap
- Polishing product (eg pink puma) ~ 5-10 €

And then add a few dozen bucks to have a professional hone it to satisfaction (don't buy hones just for one razor, they are often crazy expensive, and using them requires training)

Give or take, I would put at least a $100 budget.

My best advice, though, is to let a pro/expert do all the work.

I think it would be a great blade once restored. My advice is to oil it and wait until you have the cash or think you are ready to restore it yourself. In the mean time if you watch the classifieds here you will see some crazy deals on shave ready vintage straight fairly regularly. You then simply need a brush and decent soap and a strop. None of those need to be expensive. There are recent threads on inexpensive strops and at Wally world and other retailers you can find cheap brushes. There are a number of sources for good soaps. In fact if you look at Maggards I think they have pretty extensive sample packs on soaps.

Thank guys/gals. From looking around, I've gathered it would be slightly cheaper yet just as much as a new blade. Though they wouldn't have as much charm, or fun restoring. My opinion..

I'm thinking bone scales, though I saw some nice stag scales somewhere. Just polished and shiny not mirror finish is good with me. Having it perfectly mirror I think might be over restoring..

I'll have a look at the above mentioned places.

Think I may have found a new hobby. Haha. :)

What type of oil RezDog?

Just about any petroleum based will work to protect it from any further corrosion. In fact you could use petroleum jelly if you want. Anything is better than nothing. Some oils dry out faster and need to be reapplied sooner.

Most likely gun oil, but I am going to guess that, as it is simply meant to protect the steel from further oxidation, even sewing machine oil (3in1) would do the trick.

Alot of work to done on that Razor,maybe not worth the effort:(

A good starter razor in the classifieds about the same as a 5 pack of blades so no not crazy expensive, and it will be shave ready , work on that one for a bit , but start shaving with a good starter. Tc

Hand sanding with wet/dry sandpaper would do all of the rust removal. If carried to an extreme it would even remove the pitting that is underneath the rust. Scales...the least expensive method would be to use the one scale that you still have as a model for shape, length and thickness then make your own from 1/8" thick wood or acrylic.
That leaves honing & pinning...do yourself a favor and have someone else do that. :)

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Alot of work to done on that Razor,maybe not worth the effort:(

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A pretty accurate assessment considering the rust spots that will be a part of the new edge.

There looks to be a few chips on the edge. So it looks and sounds like a bit more work than you're prepared for, especially with the busted scales. But the profile looks great so you may want to get that sent off to someone in the classifieds depending on how much you want to put into it if there's any sentimental value attached to it.

I do a lot of restorations for myself & for friends as a hobby and if I acquired this one it would have to have been really cheap (like the way you did in fact!) and when sorting it would go in my "requires extensive work" pile. Could it be restored? Well the thing is this, on a blade like this the first thing I would do is take care of the edge issues and see in fact if it would hold an edge before I were even to proceed with any other restoration steps. Just my thoughts on this particular razor.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Alot of work to done on that Razor,maybe not worth the effort:(

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Agreed
It can be done but will take many hours and all the existing bevel will be gone.