Quote Originally Posted by outback View Post
The parts/junk box.



Yeah, there's probably a few that could be saved, but for what, when a look thru a few antique shops can turn up some real gems for $20 or less. Quite often, they need no more than pulled apart, cleaned, and a good rub with a good metal polish. 3M marine metal restorer/polish is the best, so far.

For example, picked this one up for $15. He said it was bought as a anniversary gift, from his wife. She had passed, he'd never used it.



Or the day I basically robbed the guy of a pile of oldie's, for 150.00 Quite a few that would fetch way more than what I paid for the lot of um, as is.



Even more, once restored.



I've spent my time playing with junk, seeing if I could make it live again. Its a good learning experience, that should be done to learn what not to do. For that day you find that special, holy grail type razor you've always wanted. By then you should know what can be done, and how to.
Quote Originally Posted by PaulFLUS View Post
Not intended to be hurtful but I also have to say you should curb your expectations for that one. Without some serious repairs that one is not going to shave or even hone up. Mike pretty well covered it. The upside is that you don't have much in it. Also there are so many razors out there to work on that you can pick up for cheap that are much easier candidates. AND, since you are not strapped for shavers you can try out repair techniques and learn what works and what doesn't. Worst case, you screw it up then you add it to the wind chime pile. I think most guys here who do restoration have one of those.

It happens. I had a beautiful Böker with sculpted scales in the original box that need a minor chip removed near the heel. Using a Dremel to correct it I lost my grip and snapped the entire heel off. Straight to the wind chime pile with it.

When you're new to it it's hard to recognize what's in good shape and what's not. Plus, at least for myself, I would get really excited about a new one. I still do. It's called RAD: Razor Acquisition Disorder. But, you're young and have a lot of resources to work on them with so you'll find others that you can have plenty of success with...and we'll help you along the way.
Quote Originally Posted by Gasman View Post
I'm with Mike. Wrap it in many layers of duct tape and trash it. It's beyond worth the effort. 35 to 45 bucks on ebay will get you something worth working on. Sorry to be blunt.
Quote Originally Posted by outback View Post
I use a pencil grinder in my dremmel. Very low speed and lite touch. Not for the beginner, IMHO. But that razor is a perfect candidate for a learning tool. Look at the geometry of good razors, use your marble to come up with ideas and outcome of doing things, beforehand. Like carpentry..measure twice, cut once. Cause ya cant put it back on once ya cut it off.

Dig in, keep us up on your progress. We can give pointers along the way.

But check the library on restorations n such. Get an idea of what's involved, first.

Again...measure twice, cut once. Plan your work, work your plan. Slow wins the race...unless your me.

To be clear about context here, the reason I have this junk razor is because my dad has a bad habit of going to bad antique shops, and buying crap razors. Unfortunately when I convinced him to buy a much more expensive brand-new Dovo razor instead, this actually reinforced his initial habit because the Dovo came so badly warped from the factory that it was actually dramatically worse than most of the garbage antique shop razors.

The only reasons I want to attempt some restorations on it are:

1. To learn more about razors, e.g. what each part of the razor is, how they're shaped, why they're shaped that way, how to sharpen them correctly, how to grind them, etc.

2. To learn without putting any more useful razor at risk, as all of my attempts to hone my own more decent razors have failed so far and I don't want to be removing tons of good metal only to keep failing over and over again.

I have no attachment to this razor one way or the other, even from a buyer's remorse standpoint, as I didn't even buy it.

That out of the way, I don't actually understand what is so critically flawed about this razor. I understand the heel looks awkward and janked up in shape, but besides looking uncomfortable to shave with I don't see exactly how that causes any problems with the sharpening / honing process. I was making sure to pay close attention to the blade as I was attempting to hone it, it was definitely sitting nice and flat on the stone throughout the entire process, so I don't see how the stabilizer being slightly too thick is a critical problem or even a problem at all honestly.

Is the geometry of this razor so wrong as to make my practice honing it pointless? Does that explain why I haven't been able to get it in remotely hair-cutting shape? If so, why?