Thread: Restoring Razor with Mold

Originally Posted by RezDog

Peroxide is way more people friendly than bleach, but neither is particularly metal friendly. Peroxide kills mild spores and degrades any residue. Just be carefully with it around metal, especially the high potency stuff.

I have plenty of Clear Care at home - that's 3% peroxide. Will that do?
I'm concerned about the oxidation though.

Here's what I have in mind
1- Overnight in peroxide
2- Thorough washing with cold water
3- Soaking in water for half an hour and scrubbing
4- Drying
5- Soaking in mineral oil or Fluid Film

Does that make sense?

Sorry for the bump, but i really don't want to screw up my first restoration.

As long as we are talking about just the scales that will be fine. Some people are very careful about working with or around mold while others have a more lackadaisical outlook. I would expect that you could wipe them down and still kill the mold. It has been I while since I did remediation, but I don’t recall ever soaking anything to kill mold. Basically it was simply wetting it down. If you want to leaving the blade on the scales do not soak it. Wipe the scales with peroxide and be sure to rinse well, dry well, and WD-40 or your favourite razor oil the pivot area. A flattened q-tip often is small enough to get in the tight spots.

So I wiped the scales with peroxide, when sprayed some fluid film on the blade.

I worked the pivot, which is much easier to open now. This is after 2-3 hours with fluid film.



This is after I used an old DE blade to scratch some more rust away.




Now its back to soaking on the Fluid Film. But I get the feeling that I'll need to get WD-40...

It looks like a good start.
Fluid film contains lanolin, I think.
It should be good stuff for all kinds of purposes.

Are you talking about rust? Looks like rust not mold.

This is a heavily rusted and pitted razor, to remove all the pitting you will have to sand. The pivot is heavily pitted as is the spine and the spots on the blade.

If you want to remove all the pitting and rust, you will have to remove the scales, then sand all the surrounding metal to the depth of the deepest pit.

If you just want to clean it up, scrub with steel wool, (000) and oil, sand with 600 and 1,000 grit wet and dry. Polish with any good metal polish, you will still have rust between the scales at the pivot and in the pin hole and have to live with some pitting. Test the edge first, to make sure it will take an edge before you invest a lot of time into restoration.

Scales look like Gutta Percha, a form of hard rubber, an early form of plastic, they used to make telephones and insulators from. It will bend with heat. You can run under hot water for a few minutes till they get pliable. Then shove some popsicle sticks between them a bit past where you want them to spread and let cool.

It may take a couple tries to get them to bend and stay where you want, don’t get too aggressive they can break, then there is no putting them back together. Nothing I have found will glue Gutta Percha.

So this is where I'm at. I used some 150 AlOx sandpaper and 400 SiC sandpaper. For the tail, I even used my small lansky hones.

How much should I try to get rid of those black spots? They look kinda deep.
How much should I worry about the scratches bringing rust back?

Ideally you should remove the scales.
You can clean the black out and leave the pitting. It is often better for the stamps that way. Steel wool and WD-40 or polish works pretty good to clean out the black. 0000 on the steel wool. It does take some elbow grease.

Looks like the standard rust that happens to razors. Not Mold. Do as Rez said, Cleaning well with polish or WD-40 and 0000 steel wool does wonders. You won't get rid of the pitting, but clean as much of the black off as possible. Unpinning can be a bit tricky the first few times you try it, but its best so that you can get in there to clean correctly.

Or contact someone around here that restores and see what they will charge ya. The rust still may come back. It happens. Just be sure it's completely dry before storing or even closing it up. It almost looks like a line of rust across the tang. This could be from it being a bit wet when you put it away. Just one of the signs to look for. Lines or many tiny spots. The multitude of tiny spots could mean its off-gassing, but I don't think you have that issue. Thanks for the pics. It helps a lot when trying to help others.

I really want to avoid removing the scales though... What's the consequence? The rust will come back quick over there?