Thread: WIP: W.G. Wilton

Found this this bad boy while participating in some RAD. In my quest for some info on the cutler, I found a thread from Glen:
https://straightrazorpalace.com/work...e-chopper.html

Well the bar has been set.

My plan for this is honey horn scales and modeled loosely off of scales from a WB fbu. Planning on a brass wedge with some file work, assuming I can get the weight high enough to balance the blade.




Had to split the scales off the blade, looks like who ever put those scales on it used nails and peened them. Lots of rust on them and subsequently the pivot area on the razor.

A little work on the dmt 1200 to see what’s happening with the bevels and geometry. Someone put a frown in the bladeon the heel side, though not too bad. There is a small chip next to the heel as well.




Hopefully I caught the shiny spots well enough to see. It felt like I’ll need some strategically placed tape as the razor is rocking pretty bad on one side, but if the bevels are really that small I don’t see a problem once I get the whole blade smiling again.

Anyways, I’ll update this thread at each step. I’m open to input too, so any opinions are welcome, they only thing decided for sure is the scale material, the finish on the blade I think would look best with a satin or possibly slightly higher sheen.

Gasman had a good question on another thread I had started about this razor.

I had stated I’ll make a wheel for sanding this blade out.

I’ve never tried this before as I’ve only sanded by hand with sandpaper wrapped around various radiused pieces of wood. The new plan is to turn a wheel that matches the hollow grind on the blade and glue some sandpaper to it, or possibly cut some kerfs in it and use wedges to attach it to the wheel so I’m not fighting glue. As I go along I’ll document whatever I try, for better or worse. Planning on replacing the sandpaper with leather and going to buffing pastes, to achieve whatever finish I’m looking for. Chances are I’ll buff it to a mirror finish then go backwards from there so I don’t get any errant scratches in the finish. Who knows, we’ll see.

I’m also in the middle of remodeling house so this may take a while. I’m sick of the house right now and need a break, this seems like a good excuse.

I think challenge one with the wheel system is going to be having no vibration and good speed control. I have seen guys state that they have used lathes at low speed with sanding drums that take flat paper. If you can keep the speed very low it will reduce the risk of screwing up the blade and reduce vibration issues.

I can get mine down to 100rpm. Depending on wheel circumference though the fpm may be high. I may use a cork backer to “soften” it a little. We’ll see and learn together.

Turning it on the lathe should give me a surface that is nice a true, I think a slight crown in it should help too. I have some blades around I can practice with too, I don’t want to launch this one into space or impale myself.

I agree with the lathe. Im afraid any other turning machine might be a bit rough besides a real belt grinder. Im enterested in this so i will be watching. I keep looking at belt grinders but they are zpendy. Making my own like Rez is doing is a possibility but not right now.

I like the idea of turning your own grinding wheel on a lathe.
I've wanted to do this but never had a lathe. If someone is willing to turn some wheels ...?
A nice belt grinder has always been on the list but is too $pendy for me.
Working those pits out with a rigid wheel as to not dig them out has always been on my mind since discovering the limitations of the soft wheels with greaseless...
I have screwed up a couple blades before I realized that, so I switched to hand sanding on expensive blades but it takes so dang long!
Looking forward to seeing your process, and the wheels you make!

Would love a belt grinder, but that’s not in the financial cards. The grinder itself is one thing but then all the wheels for various grinds, gets real expensive real fast. I always wanted to make my own razors and knives but unless I can make money with a tool or win the lottery I can’t justify the cost.

Im with ya!

My thought is that the rust and pitting at the bevel have to go, thought the rest of it is pretty cool looking. A little piece of pure copper will get the rust out of the pitting so can you use oil to prevent further rust.

I love your idea of the honey colored horn scales. They'll be the cats meow.

Well finally got my act together. Thanks to gasman and his generous heart for sending me some greaseless to play with.

I used some dividers and made a bunch of circles until one looked like it fit the original grind. I ended up at 12.5” for diameter. I have a bunch of 3/4” mdf laying around so I cut a couple circles out a little oversized so I could turn them to the correct diameter on my lathe. I mounted the round to a plate and spun it up. Seemed to fit the razors hollows pretty well so I went with it. Unfortunately it was a little small, I think 13” may have been the magic number but just went with the 12.5”.


The greaseless is a learning experience, I think I wasted a goodly amount of time figuring it out. At first I wasn’t applying it with wheel going fast enough nor was I pressing hard enough to load it properly. I’ve been cooling of the razor with bucket of water but the water reconstitutes the greaseless making it stick to the blade and not cut for a darn. Once I got an old t shirt and dried off the razor before grinding again all was well. The other problem I had was not letting the greaseless set up long enough before grinding. Anyways I finally got pretty well dialed in after an hour of chasing my tail.

I ran the lathe around 350 rpm for the first hour or so (about 1100 fpm), and ended up at around 800 rpm (around 2400 sfpm) after I got comfortable that I wasn’t going roach the blade.

Jerry sent me some 240 grit, 400 grit, and 600 grit. With the 240 it’s pretty slow going. I’ll definitely be ordering some greaseless as this experiment has gone better than I had expected, though in hindsight I don’t see why i didn’t think it would work.

As seen in the photos there’s a fair bit of pitting, and I have no intention of removing it all, my biggest concern is correcting the uneven bevels if only for my amusement as they won’t effect the shave.

Before I get a bunch of crap for grinding away on this thing, someone had done a little grinder work on it before I even got ahold of it. My intention is to try and match the finish of some of my Sheffield wedges with original finish still on them, we’ll see how that goes, I need to get some leather for that, I would think though I think I’ll try to use an mdf wheel first.

I’ll keep updating as I go and try and get better at taking a bunch of pictures as I tend to get on a roll and forget.

I’m close on one side of the blade and have a ways to go on the other. Once I’m done with the initial grinding I expect things to really start moving along.