Some advice please - suspect cell rot

I have 3 razors I'm just starting to clean up and restore a bit. They are, I think, in reasonably good shape with a little bit of rust. I dropped all 3, scales and all, in a container with Evapo-Rust for about 24 hours to try to remove the rust. When I removed them from the Evapo-Rust, I rinsed each under running water for a few minutes, used a tooth brush to brush off anything loose, dried off with a towel and dipped in 70% alcohol and let dry. Then I covered the blades with camilla oil to protect them.

I smell the scales on my razors on a regular basis to see if any scales might have cell rot, and I smelled these before dropping in the Evapo-Rust - no smell like camphor on any of the 3. After taking the 3 out of the Evapo-Rust, rinsing and dipping in the alcohol, I could smell a fairly strong camphor odor (kind of like Vicks Vapo-Rub). The scales on one of the razors (George Butler Rapid Razor) had a very strong smell and the other 2 razors (Filarmonica 12 and Otto Busch Worldmaster) had a weak smell. After I applied the oil to the blades, I let them sit for a bit, separated in open air. After about 20 minutes, I smelled them again and could not pick up the scent on the Filamonica or Busch but I could smell the odor on the Butler but it was strongest near the wedge and very faint at the other end.

I have no experience dealing with cell rot. What I've read is, usually, there is a camphor like scent coming from the scales. Maybe it's the wedge on the Butler or maybe its the wedge and scales on the Butler.

Everything I've read about Evapo-Rust is that it's safe for razors and scales. Is it possible that the Evapo-Rust bath can accelerate cell rot on scales? Has anyone heard of any reaction like this following an Evapo-Rust bath?

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Any chemicals/solvents such as evaporust and alcohol are NOT good for any plastics.
They are likely melting, literally.
I would say to let them dry good, open and in open air, after a light scrubbing and rinse in water until the smell goes away.
You must separate what is OK for blades Vs what is good for plastic and celluloid scales.
IMO, immersing a blade in anything like this should be done with the scales off.

Can't tell from the pics which razor is the George Butler but yellow celluloid scales can develop cell rot and to the best of my knowledge there is no cure. If you suspect cell rot it is highly recommended to remove the scales and discard them as the off gassing will destroy the metal. Also, cell rot is contagious and can spread to other razors destroying them too.

Nice collection of some top notch razors, all well worth restoring and using. Good luck and if you need any more info please feel free to ask.

It's obvious the celluloid is affected. I'd pop those scales off.

Evapo Rust may be safe for plastics but it's reaction creates Ferric Sulfate.
Taken from link below: FERRIC SULFATE is acidic. Corrosive to copper, copper alloys, mild steel, and galvanized steel (USCG, 1999).

https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/3470

Thank you all for the advice. I removed the scales from the Butler (yellow scales), and will re-scale. The other 2 seem to be fine. Lesson learned - I'll be removing scales before using Evapo-Rust in the future.

High probability the Filarmonica and Worldmaster will make it out safe but that white scaled razor seems like it's fried.

Celuloid cand be kickstarted to decompose by alcohool.

Dont know about Evapo-Rust but i recomend only using warm water and detergent scrub on the scales from now on.

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Originally Posted by ovidiucotiga

Celuloid cand be kickstarted to decompose by alcohool.

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Yup, even sunlight. It's fun to shape on a belt sander until it starts smoking :o

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

Yup, even sunlight. It's fun to shape on a belt sander until it starts smoking :o

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:roflmao.........

Celluloid by it's nature is unstable stuff. Some hot water and some good rubbing is enough to start them off. They need to be treated with kid gloves and that includes light exposure too.

Timely! Decided to get back into restoration a few weeks ago and had to pour through a few hundred razors to prioritize my work. Found that in one compartment in a storage box ALL of the blades (about 6) were showing odd amounts of "fluffy" rust. Most just had the light rust on metal that was outside the scales, but one blade was completely covered in that fluffy rust even beneath scale material. Determined that the one with all the rust also had celluloid scales and they were off-gassing, and that gas was only affecting exposed metal on the other blades.

So I removed and trashed the offending set of scales, cleaned up the rust on all of the blades and life is good again. Moral of the story for me was at the first sign of celluloid rot, remove that razor from the mix, remove and throw away those scales, and clean off all exposed metal on all blades in that compartment. That said, rot is rare in my experience. Almost a thousand blades here and only one set of scales in the last 10 years has been rotten.

If I had a shop, I would be tempted to rescale any celluloid that didn't look good (either from fading or warping) just to be on the safe side.
When they first started using celluloid, they were probably all talking about how much better it was than the old horn scales that were prone to insect damage and delaminating.

Lemme see if I remember what Neil Miller said......

Cellulose Acetate....Good.
Cellulose Nitrate....Bad.

At least I think that is how it went. When making them, there were frequent fires and explosions. I recall that a maker (Case?) had the building with hinges on the roof so as it blew, they could just close it again. :eek:

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Originally Posted by sharptonn

Lemme see if I remember what Neil Miller said......

Cellulose Acetate....Good.
Cellulose Nitrate....Bad.

At least I think that is how it went. When making them, there were frequent fires and explosions. I recall that a maker (Case?) had the building with hinges on the roof so as it blew, they could just close it again. :eek:

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Kind of like the munitions factories that had giant slides for evacuating the control rooms in case reactions went south.

I guess they just recognized that some things were just inevitable.

In my experience, it’s typically the transparent celluloids that are most likely to be a problem as the pigments used to make them opaque stabilzed the worst of the reactivity. You can really see this in action on the celluloid versions of tortoiseshell, where the razors will have rust spots in the shape of the transparent parts of the scales.

It gets complicated though because not all the transparent plastics that were used were celluloid. Some were lucite, some bakelite. Only celluloid scales are a problem.

While I don’t really think of the ‘french ivory’, or the opaque yellow, as being prone to acidic outgassing, it’s still certainly possible and I’d err on the side of caution and replace them.