Thread: Restoring a PUMA

An alternative to acetone is boiling water . I never seem to have acetone around when I need it .

Pretty sure the inlay would have been dropped on to the scales after heating it. How hot I dunno. Glue is safer.

Boiling water worked for me a couple times though unintentionally. Tried to straighten some scales and it shrunk the scales enough that the bolsters and inlays just popped off. Happened to two S.R. Droescher razors. Acetone worked when I wanted to do it intentionally. Haven't really messed around with the heat in awhile. I wanted to try and heat up a metal plate on top of the inlay and see if that would help keep the plastic flush around the inlay. I messed around with using a dremel to carve out the inlay and then heating which worked out better to keep it flush, but my carving was off in spots and looked horrible. If only I had the skills of Mycarver. I'm still sitting on a Puma that needs a new tang grip and scales that I can't decide on what to do. Whatever you decide to do post your results. I always love the transformation from before and after. Edit: Need to add that I didn't mean that using boiling water would shrink your scales since it has only happened with two sets of Droescher scales and not with other ones.

Been on a bit of an extended holiday with wife and dogs and haven’t been able to work on the PUMA as a result. I will get back to it in a week.

I am ordering some replacement horn scales from Fendrihan. They are relatively inexpensive and will allow me to try a few options. Pic will follow as I move forward.

Thanks again to everyone who posted suggestions. They have been very helpful.

I got rid of the chip without losing too much metal.


Managed to clean it up and not damage the etching.


The scales cleaned up nicely with toothpaste and automotive rubbing compound. There is still some staining, but that looks to be a result of contact with the rubber bit on the tang.

I’m beginning to think that the celluloid rot diagnosis may have been premature. I hope that is the case, but I am keeping the razor in its coffin box in an open area away from other razors just in case.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice. For $25, I now have a nice PUMA and a nice PUMA coffin box.

That looks way better than I thought it would come out. Nice work!

Breadknifed the blade an an DMT 325 to remove most of the chip. Then went to an DMT 1000 with 1 layer of tape to set the bevel and finish removing the remnants of the chip. Followed with Norton 4K/8k. Finished with a coticule with water followed by Vermio with water.

Diamond on hard felt paddle strop followed by CrOx on balsa and ended with about 100 passes on a shell strop.

2 pass shave led to pretty near bbs. Just have to fine tune the edge a bit.

I’m pleased with how this blade turned out. Now if the cell rot demons will stay away ...

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

That looks way better than I thought it would come out. Nice work!

Thank you for the compliment. It was rude of me not to respond right away.

I have to admit to being intimidated by the possibility of celluloid rot. The staining on the scales and the black on the blade certainly pointed to that.

Given a fairly small investment in the both the razor and the coffin box, I decided to try to clean it up and see what time will do. I didn’t have much to lose by being patient. It’s a good thing I had a vacation planned so that I could go away and think about alternatives before tearing the old scales off. When I got back, nothing new or bad had happened, so the decision to work with the existing scales was a pretty easy one to make.

I did learn a couple of really important things. I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about celluloid rot (I knew NOTHING at all about it before this) and I learned to be patient when working on a restoration/clean up.

I also confirmed that there are a lot of good people on these forums who will advise and guide with great generosity. Thanks to all.