Thread: My first restoration!!!!

Hey everyone I made a post earlier this week on a razor I found at my moms house she thinks it could be my grandfathers but she's not really sure anyway the markings on it say J.VENEZIA PASSAIC,N.J. & the other says black beauty no one that saw the post heard of it so I decided to try to restore it & after watching videos & reading posts I thought I was ready I never did any metal restoration before but I'm a fast learner and pretty handy with tools so I actually just went to harbor freight & got some buffing wheels & some polishing compounds they sell ( I known I just lost some of ya after the mention of harbor freight lol I know they don't have the best stuff but I thought I might be a good place to start) well worst case I just lost $30 I'm still way below the cost of a good new razor so I started with the green polish they only have color code but I used the green to clean up the blade to just see how bad it was well I was surprised that it came out ok after that & I was able to see some of the stains were gonna need something more abrasive so I switched to a new wheel and loaded it up with the black compound did that for a little bit and it got pretty much all the harder to get marks off blade then I went back to the green then finished it off with white compound on blade & scales I was pleased for my first attempt i could always go back with a greaseless compound to get some of the spots I couldn't get with the harbor freight stuff next I will hone the blade 1 bread knife it 2 set bevel 3 finish it but I need to get some stones I have a Arkansas fine & medium but seems like a lot of people use wet stones might have to invest I thought I might be able to bread knife it on the fine not sure though well feel free to comment on it thanks for reading

turned out nice! i've never used buffing wheels and compound myself just sandpaper and Mothers polish. get her honed and start shaving with it! (wouldn't hurt to use a period now and then too. i was out of breath after reading your post LOL

Looks pretty good for your first cleanup!

I have two criticisms, first is you don't need to breadknife that blade, just honing with proper technique should produce a straight edge.
Second, why did you remove the bluing!?!?! The tang was purposefully colored that was (hence "black beauty" model name).

Intresting I didn't realize that thought it was called black beauty cause of the scales, just thought it was tarnished feeling stupid now ,but I do like the nice shiny metal now & I'll work on my grammar as well lol.

Don't go to greaseless for that
Looks great but also don't bread knife just hone properly or better thill send it out to someone to do it properly and then you will be able to appreciate it better when you use it

ok sounds like I don't need to bread knife lol. I'm new to this so I appreciate the help ,I'll probably wind up sending it out to Lynn cause The only stones I have are Arkansas fine & medium idk if I can use them or not. If I send it to Lynn at least I'll know it's set up right & then I'll be able to see what they mean by shave ready.

Don't feel bad about loosing the bluing. It looks great. If you want it back, there are plenty of posts with tips on how to get that effect on blades. Now you could do the whole blade!

Harbor Freight tools are better than no tools. Besides, many of us started this adventure for a "cheaper" shave (myself included). Many have failed (cough*me*coughcough) and it's good to know of alternative solutions available immediately instead of spending 100 bucks and waiting a week for Amazon.

Thanks dinnermint I will look into bluing ,but I kinda like it shiny. I'm not to upset removing the bluing lol .I've had a lot of success with harbor freight to be honest it's great for a DIYer. If I was running a contractor business I wouldn't really rely on harbor freight,but for the weekend warrior it works and you can get good results. Just read the reviews before you buy anything they will give you an idea on how good a product is. To bad the don't have any good honing stones lol I'm thinking about getting a Norton 4000/8000 any thoughts on stones there is a lot to choose from can be confusing.

First off, well done on the cleanup, it looks really shiny! My recommendation is to get the Norton set from SRD which is the cheapest place I've seen it. You'll have the 1k for setting the bevel, and the 4/8k for getting the edge. Its a great starter set, and you can really great edges from it, cheap. then get some CrOx for a strop and that will smooth the shave out perfect. However, I would recommend to have this one honed by a pro as there is a really good chance it is an heirloom, and that is more valuable than any razor out there.

+1 on pro hone for this one. Or if you're not eager to get shaving with it, get one or two similarly sized & styled razors to practice with first.

You can't really go wrong with a 4k/8k norton, I've only used Naniwa stones. I couldn't really give you a specific reason why I picked them over norton. There is a thread, I think it was a challenge, to get a good shave off of only going up to an 8k and setting a bevel with the 4k. Getting the lapping stone would be a good idea, for flattening and creating slurry.

link:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...on-2012-a.html