Thread: Mabe a useful trick for Straight Razors

Hi all, I stumbled upon this repair trick by a craftsman who's expertise is repairing and restoring guitars both modern and vintage.

Ya, I know! Guitars? Straights?

Check this 'trick' out, both the Baking Soda and the Ivory or Bone Dust!!

I found it well worth the time!

I hope all will enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slCMkvEfK_U

'Love it, Cudarunner. Obscure crafts are a goldmine of improvisations & tricks. Thanks for posting.

That's a great piece of information that will be very useful to many.
Thanks for sharing!

Pete <:-}

Originally Posted by pinklather

'Love it, Cudarunner. Obscure crafts are a goldmine of improvisations & tricks. Thanks for posting.

Thanks my friend, I was thinking this 'trick' could be used to save rare ivory or bone scales with cracks at the pins or perhaps a chip filled in.

I've got a lot of chunks of bone left from when I http://straightrazorpalace.com/works...ke-my-leg.html and when I get some time I thought that I'd play a little and see how it does with say filling in a chip.

Things to do at the Boars Nest!

Well since I started this thread about a Trick That Might Be Useful with straight razors I've seen others use it but they either didn't use the bone, horn or Ivory that's mentioned in the instructional video.

Also in the video it's mentioned that this trick will work on Plastics but not All Plastics and I've been wanting to play and see what happens.

Awhile back I'd picked up a group buy of some beginner level razors and they all needed work and one had a frown and wasn't worth taking out but had some fancy looking scales. Well once I got to it there was a visible crack at the pivot so it was Play Time!

I took the razor apart and once I had it cleaned up and most of the crud off on the insides I found that along with the visible crack there was another here's a pic;



Since my go to degreaser (Acetone) was out of the question I used 90% rubbing alcohol and soaked the scale then I used an old tooth brush to clean and then soak and then clean.

I sharpened up my dad's old scribe and scratched/dug a small trench down into and around the cracks. I was very worried as I could see the tip 'flexing' and I really didn't want to try to put the scale back together.

Here's the tool;



The tip is actually very pointed and sharp however the lack of Depth of Field doesn't show it.

Here's what the scale looked like.



Since it was such a small amount to fill I used a set of tweezers to pick up the baking soda and get it where I needed it.

It only took one drop of thin super glue per crack (one on top one on the bottom) to cover the baking soda.

Sorry but I was anal and forgot to take pics

I let it set for 5 minutes. (Yes the pro said it was hard in 1 minute but I'd never tried this and I was practicing the 6 P's.) Then I used 220 Wet & Dry sandpaper and sanded it flat.

Here's what I had (I have no idea where the dark came from as there wasn't anything dark after cleaning and scraping)



Since it's inside and not visible I didn't spend a lot of effort or supplies but I did clean it up a bit.



It seems to be very solid and I've redrilled the hole and when I get to it I'll be putting a blade back in the scales.

While it may be Heresy to some (sorry Tom) but I'm going to put a near full wedge in them. Here's a mock up;





Thanks for looking and I hope it's of some use to some of you out there.

Well done Cudarunner! Do you think it would work if the tip broke off completely? Cause I may have a few of those floating around......

Originally Posted by MattCB

Well done Cudarunner! Do you think it would work if the tip broke off completely? Cause I may have a few of those floating around......

Matt, I really don't know! As I understand the Pro's video if you have a close match of material and make very fine 'dust' and then use the dust to fill the void and then apply the thin super glue it 'should' fill in and color match or at least be close.

With that said, just as when I tried this on the back of the scale I made a very small 'trench' and the trench extended outward to have more surface area to be reinforced.

I would 'think' that if the two pieces were to be attempted to be put back that some kind of a fixture/guide would be needed to provide proper alignment and the mating surfaces would need to be beveled to have enough area for the reinforcement to hold onto. Kind of like this;

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I would guess that the only way to find out is to attempt it.

With that said I would presume that the latest self appointed expert/s will chime in and tell me/us that I'm full of it and then show me/us how 'It's supposed to be done'.

I will be the latest self appointed expert!

From the video he uses this technique to fill an area and when structural strength is needed he didn't. So I can see this used for filling chips but not for completely broken things.

Originally Posted by 32t

I will be the latest self appointed expert!

From the video he uses this technique to fill an area and when structural strength is needed he didn't. So I can see this used for filling chips but not for completely broken things.

As I said I don't know what's possible with the baking soda/horn/bone/ivory trick with razor scales. The 'nut' on the guitar would have to hold a 'string' that was under a lot of tension so it wouldn't work for that application.

However it might be possible to use the trick for scales as there isn't any 'tension' but there is the forces of pinning and daily use that is part of the equation.

I don't have any scales that I could use to play with and find out. I'm hoping that if someone does and can do an experiment it would be beneficial to all of us.

I got the new blade pinned in this morning and the scales survived very nicely. Looks like they will live for many more years