Thread: Crocus finish or Satin?

Originally Posted by taskind

Dear Peter,
Do you have any restoration video on youtube or any other media? so that we can watch in these quarantine days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBeNj7fh7Ck

Pliesten with normals knives

https://youtu.be/4sfcDHMkLpU?t=592

Here is a video of Werner Breidenbach, one of the best razor grinders in Solingen in all times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p63sYVCLVUk&t=205s

He introdueced me in the usage of the hollow grinding machine and all other steps in razor fabrication. Werner Breidenbach started learning his craftmanship in 1948 and is therefore the oldest master still alive and still working part time for some companies in Solingen.
Beside him only Heribert Wacker worked his whole live as a razor grinder and still does today. He was also one of the last apprentices in razor grinding in the 1950'th. After that time no more razor grinders have been professionally educated. Thanks to schwabenchris for the link to the video.

Regards Peter

Hi Peter,
I thank you for the video and the news that he is alive. this video is kind of my asmr video. I have been probably watching this video more than twice a week for one year. If you happen to see him again say hello from a fan in Istanbul. I wish I could understand german, but by watching this video I started to understand most of it. Everytime the video finishes when he starts to hone the razor I feel a misery and I looked every possible rasiermesser video on youtube to find the remaining part of the video.
This is a good video from sheffield also, I hope you like it.
https://vimeo.com/channels/1383329/2...ref=fb-share&1
mit freundlichen grüßen
Taskin

Hi Taskin,
yeah the video on youtube stops at a certain time and I think it is not an official permitted video. The rights of this film belong to the LVR institute in Solingen. They do sell DVD's of the whole film for about 10 € or so. I think a got a DVD left, so if you like - shoot me a pm. Also if you are interested in getting a razor from Werner Breidenbach - if you don't already own one.
I also plan to publish a seperate thread in the razor column of this forum about the life and work of Werner Breidenbach soon. He knows a lot of the Solingen razor companies from the past and there are many stories to tell.
I visit him frequently and will pass greetings from you next time.

Regards Peter

Never seen that Sheffield video before. Really enjoyed it, thank you for sharing Taskin.

I have always wanted to see the entire Werner Breidenbach video. I sent you a pm Peter. I think it is a great initiative to publish this valuable material Peter. Looking forward to reading the thread.

Hi Peter, I sent you a p.m

I used to work as a polisher for a large dental instrument manufacturer. For the most part depending on the instrument to be polished we were using 'Hard' felt wheels with emery compound for pre-polishing/cutting and green rouge for the final polish. (Occasionally we would use spiral sewn mop wheels for polishing instrument shanks.) This was used for instruments which needed to have curved surfaces and where the inevitable rounding you get with standard felt wheels isn't an issue. However for some instruments, especially periodontal knives, you want very crisp lines defining the bevel planes, which also need to be mirror polished, in which case we would use 'Diamond Hard' felt wheels. These wheels were so dense that when you drop them or knock them together they sound like wood. We would use a diamond tool or a silicon carbide stick to dress the wheel to a certain profile/radius depending on the work. I ended up with dozens of wheels for different jobs.

On one of the periodontal knives I used to have to polish I would make a special wheel which was thin cardboard glued to a steel backing plate. This wheel when charged with compound would give a very true and flat mirror finish.

I'd be interested to try to make and use a lead faced wheel for polishing, I know in watchmaking parts are black polished on a tin lapping plate.

As an aside, in my experience it gets harder to produce a mirror finish the harder the wheel surface becomes. You need to check your work at different angles in the light to make sure all the scratches are gone, a single errant piece of grit embedded in a hard wheel can ruin a job in a second. Soft wheels are easier to create the gloss but always introduce some distortion to the reflection.

Very interesting read, thanks for the addition.
Some questions. What kind of emery do you use on your wheels and what is the green rouge - never heard that? Sounds like a green and red paste in one ...
In the razor cutlery we use either green paste, means chromium oxide for mirror polish, or red powder. The red powder or paste is based on iron oxide and gives a much better mirror polish. It isn't used quite offen these days because the red powder lays down everywhere in the workshop while polishing. In the older days polishing with red iron oxide was called "fox polishing" because of the red color. The tools and the polishers themselfes were covered in red and looked like a (red) fox. That's why the red polishing went out of fashion already in the 1930th/1940ths, when the green paste enters the market.
But with some experience you can clearly see on old razors if they are green or red polished. Also red polished surfaces are more stable. They don't get scratched so easily like green polished surfaces.
I also like to use tripel as a (pre-) polishing powder/paste.

Regards Peter