so here are some upcoming projects. same basic blade design, each with a different period tail. each blade has the flats along the spine with a slogan stamped in.
in the pic of all three, left to right: Wade & Butcher stamped "The Celebrated Fine India Steel Razor." Packwood stamped "Old English." James Johnson Silver Steel stamped "Warranted Good."
The packwood is in fantastic shape, The james Johnson is obviously a throw away for a lot of folks here (not me) and the W&B has some serious issues. the Packwood and Johnson projects will take a back seat to the W&B.
the other pics of the W&B show those issues...... bad attempt by someone to regrind this bad boy. the flats along the spine have been rounded over and flow into the blade faces severely, the shoulders have been rounded and all but eliminated in the process and the tang has been rounded over just above and below the makers mark with the back of the tang mirroring that. the cutting edge has been sharpened with a convex edge...... the saving grace for this beast is the fact the stampings are still nearly 100% intact. the goal here is to 1.) re-establish those flats to whatever degree i can while not affecting the stampings. 2.) regrind the blade faces (without radically changing the blade design) to eliminate the convex edge and re-establish the shoulders and crisp up the transition between sides of spine and blade faces. 3.) address the tang to some extent, though im not confident this will look quite right ever again. 4.) scale it and get this thing shaving again!
