Celluloid polishing

Gents,

I have a few razors with what I believe to be celluloid scales. They have that characteristic nasty smell after being rubbed, the works.

One side has never seen light, the other has. The side that has seen light is dark brown and has some discoloration in lighter brown, like something had been dripped on it. The backside of the scales are a black mirror polished finish, almost like the black plastic handles on the lower end DOVOs.

I tried some MAAS lightly on the duller side, but now the whole side looks dull and not mirror polished. Is there anything else that I can do to make both sides black and mirror like?

Thanks in advance.

k

The only thing I can think of is using a buffing wheel and some polishing compound for plastics. That's what I would try. Might want to sand it up to like 2500 grit or so with wet&dry sand paper first to get it as smooth as possible before polishing it on the buffing wheel.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by minstrel

The only thing I can think of is using a buffing wheel and some polishing compound for plastics. That's what I would try. Might want to sand it up to like 2500 grit or so with wet&dry sand paper first to get it as smooth as possible before polishing it on the buffing wheel.

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Be very carefull with a buffing wheel on cel as it will burn if you leave it in one spot for any length of time
I have never tryed it myself,but what about black shoe polish
Kind regards Peter

Also keep it at low speeds. Celluloid is very volatile.

Check. Hadn't thought of that. That would be a mess.

Let me tell you what I have tried.

I tried the plastic polish and a low speed dremel felt wheel - and the result was not shiny but more of the same weird light brown discoloration.

I then started thinking about some other polish that I might have, and I thought of this stuff called Honda gloss that I use on my motorcycle for tar and bugs and the like - it is safe for clear coat, and I thknk it is slightly abrasive too - so I sprayed some of that stuff on and it was much better - but it dried and left it still different but better.

I hadn't thought about paste wax, but that will be my next attempt.

Any other ideas? Surely someone has tried polishing celluloid?

K

Quote:

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Originally Posted by minstrel

The only thing I can think of is using a buffing wheel and some polishing compound for plastics. That's what I would try. Might want to sand it up to like 2500 grit or so with wet&dry sand paper first to get it as smooth as possible before polishing it on the buffing wheel.

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Ditto. That's what I would suggest, as well.

Tried metal polish intended for brass or silver? These usually have an extremly fine abrasive.

I use a product called Brasso as a final polish on my CA finished scales, it brings up a mirror finish quite nicely.

OK, tried silver polish, didn't help, and actually was more abrasive than MAAS, left a bit of a dull sheen - tried the Honda gloss again and it shined it up but didn't help with the discoloration. the surface is smooth but doesn't look the same -

Going to try a couple of different waxes next - shoe polish is the first.

Will check back. The blades on these scales are superb, so I may need to just have them rescaled, but I would like to keep them original if I could -

K

Joe C. - these are the blades I am going to be sending to you shortly, so you will see what I am talking about.

Sounds as if you are chasing the 'rot' into the scales... You may find a 'clean layer' in there. Be carefull with at lot of those cleaners...they may actually be slowly causing degradation themselves. You might be able to sand down through the brown layers, and maybe coat the clean surfaces with a protective wax (renaissance wax?).

I would recommend, using a metal file and carefully sanding down the pinhead (use masking tape around the work-area), use a small nail punch, add a lubricant to the pin, and lightly tap the pin through. Now, remove the blade, and slap on a new set of scales that are not celluloid!! :roflmao

Hell, use ebony if you want them to look close to the originals, or find an old razor that has a crap blade with celluloid scales, and switch them out (these razors are a dime a dozen on eBay).

Good luck, and if you do figure out a way to stop the celluloid from breaking down, DO let us know!!!

C utz

These scales stink, I mean really smell - especially if you try to MAAS them - wow.

Thanks for the suggestion - I may just need to do that - here is the kicker - I could live with the scales if they were the same color on both sides. But since the blades were only exposed to air and light on *one* side - the backs are pristine and deep black (looking every bit like the black shiny plastic scales you see on the lower end Dovos) while the top scales are bs brown to moss green - the razors were also never closed, so there is no encroachment by the celluloid gases onto the steel - the scales are actually in perfect shape - just discolored! Damnit!

At any rate - I will keep trying. Thanks for the response.

K

I just did a set last night. Sand with grit 150 work through about 1500, change to those neet abrasive pads up to 1200, fianlly Maas. They always turn out spit polish black for me

I guess the only thing that bothers me about that is that these things are not terribly thick, doing that much sanding doesn't make them hair thin? That would be my only concern.

I have not wanted to touch these with actual paper because of the thickness problem, but the color really is annoying. And those abrasive pads are pretty aggressive, are you using a Dremel or all by hand?

Thanks!

K

call me I PMed you

I PM'd you back! I didn;t want to just call and say, hey is "BOGARTUS" there? I figured you must actually have a real name, and I might get hung up on my the missus if I called with that nom?

At any rate, I took your advice, and what I did was start with 1000 grit wet sandpaper, actually filled up a plastic tub with about 2 inches of warm water, sat my fanny down in front of the TV, dunked the handles in the water, loaded up the paper and went to town. It took a while and getting around the pins was a chore, but it worked well. I gauged how much to do by the slurry I was getting off the scales - the discoloration was only skin deep as it were, so as I was scrubbing, the water was a tan brown color. When I started getting no color, then I figured I had gotten all of the bad stuff - I then went to 2000, and made sure than I got everywhere. I then MAAS by hand, placing a dab between the finger and thumb and just running them between my fingers until it dried completely, then loaded up some more and just kept at it.

The result was a nice shine, but not complete. I then covered the scales with a very fine layer of Renaissance wax, hardly used much at all - rubbed it in quite a bit, waited for a nice haze, then wiped it off - you should see these scales now - you could see your self in them. Really brilliant. I was just too timid to take sand paper to these scales, but all in all it worked exceptionally well.

I plan on posting some pics soon as a general resto topic. Stay tuned.

K

My wife even calls be bogartus. At any rate I am glad they turned out. Lets see them sometime.

Name is
Joe

I have nothing but vintage razors in my collection, maybe my scales aren't that dirty and dull yet. When I buy a razor, unless it's from a trusted seller, I spray computer electronic cleaner into the scales. The stuff that you buy in electronic stores, has a nozzle with a brush at the tip. This is safe on most plastics and doesn't seem to harm the scales. It blows the dust and gunk out of the pins and corners. I rub a thin coat of machine oil and buff my scales to a good shine. I just barely started str8t shaving back in Feb. so my scales may not have seen as much use as some of the other member's but then I don't know the history of my razors either.
Ernest

I polish celluloid all the time and I have two methods that are safe and will make them look as good as new.

The first is get a can of cape cod polishing cloths, you can get them on Eboy. Just some light rubbing and they do a fantastic job. The other uses a dremmel with a muslin buff and some yellow rouge designed for very soft metals and plastic. You just apply the rouge to the muslin and using low speed, little pressure and keep moving rapidly at all times until it polishes then repeat with a chamois wheel. I got the rouge off the tool shop at timezone.com.

Personally I think the cape cod cloths are best unless the scales are really chewed up then the dremmel is better.

Thank you for the replies guys - I will check out the cloths, those sound interesting-

My scales are chewed up, they are just terribly discolored - from once being black they have turned a light pasty army green - and only on one side (the side that had been exclusively exposed to air and light - so one side is shiny black, the other is grotesque green.

I actually have been experimenting, and other than using exceptionally fine wet/dry sand paper under running water, I whipped out a chamois leather polishing wheel and went to town on a handle a while back, and it really did a decent job of shining the scales up, thereafter I hit them with Ren wax and they are popping now - just gorgeous.

When I get the first two back from Joe C, I will post picts of the lot.

K