Restoring a Cheap Antique Shop Razor

Hi,

I have this "Neptune" razor my father bought for cheap at an antique shop. It is in pretty bad shape, I posted about it ages ago before I got sidetracked, I remember people pointing out that the heel needs to be corrected, the bevel is very blatantly uneven, and the thing does not cut at all.

I now have access to a full Metallurgy workshop, which means I have a 1K waterstone, 4k/8k waterstone, microscopes, polishing wheels up to 1 micron, grinders, basically anything I could possibly need to do this, the only thing I don't have is the knowledge of how exactly I should go about it.

I did do a zoom session with gssixgun 2 years ago, but my attempts at sharpening this myself so far have failed so I don't think I absorbed enough skill from that to figure this out completely on my own.

Any advice on where to start with this razor?

Attachment 345483
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Need better pics of both sides of the blade, in whole. Pics of parts of the razor does me no good.

Need to see the condition and hone wear that the blade is in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by outback

Need better pics of both sides of the blade, in whole. Pics of parts of the razor does me no good.

Need to see the condition and hone wear that the blade is in.

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How close do you want them? I can go take some macros right now, just need to know what I'm taking. By default I would just be laying the razor flat and taking a close up photo of the whole blade, with no particular emphasis on the bevel. I could also shine light on the bevel or tilt the razor if necessary.

Attachment 345491

Attachment 345492

Like these.

Here you go:
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Attachment 345500

1. Its been honed to death.

A major heel correction is in need. Hone wear is hitting the whole width of stabilizer.

To be blunt, and honest....not worth the effort, or time, to make usable.

Toss it, there's so many more better blades out there. Especially to try and learn to hone something like this, let alone, restore.

But if you want to try, you can. Your going to have to relieve the stabilizers, so the edge clears the hone's, then thin them back down, as originally.

Here's an example of what I mean.
Their the same, ones been reground, with heal and stabilizers thinned. Other is still in original condition. Its one that I never would have touched, in my restoration beginning's, till I'd gained some more skills.

I do believe there's info in the library on this subject, too. But you need that clearance, so it'll hone properly. Period..!!
Other than that, the hone wear looks fairly even.

Attachment 345501

Another in progress of thinning. After chip removal.

Attachment 345503

Attachment 345502

How it should look once done. Notice how the edge is now in front, and below the stabilizers

Attachment 345504

As Mike says it's pretty much past its use by date but you could practice on it.

If you do use a grinder to remove the stabiliser take care to not apply it to the wheel width ways you can tear chunks off the blade that way.
A slow speed belt or wet grinder would be best.
After you've done that the razor could have a new geometry depending on how much the stabiliser interfered but you'd learn a lot about restoring an edge & if it's even possible..

I don’t have access to a grinder and using one to reshape the stabilizer kind of scares me. I have been able to do that manually with a coarse diamond hone. I felt it was less dangerous for me and gave me greater control over the final results.

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. :rofl2:

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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.

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.

The parts/junk box.

Attachment 345531

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.

Attachment 345532

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.

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Even more, once restored.

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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:

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Originally Posted by outback

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.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

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.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gasman

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.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by outback

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. :rofl2:

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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?

If I were going to try to fix this...
First I wod use a diamond plate and reshape the edge to match the shape on the spine of the razor. That is how it was in the beginning. At that point the edge would be smiling and not frowning. Then grind the heal back so it wouldn't be in the way when honing. Then try to do a bevel set.

If you want to do this go for it. You can't hurt it any more than it is. Put the razor on a piece of paper, trace the spine of the razor. Move the razor so that the edge is on that line on the paper, then mark the edge so you can see how much you need to grind away from the edge to get the same shape.
Ok. It doesn't have a frown, but it's far from the shape it should be.

That is step one in my book. Then go after the heal.

Yes....that's why it won't hone. The leading edge of the razor has been honed away to the point that the stabilizers are now hitting the stone. That's bad.! It will keep the cutting edge off the hones until the stabilizer clears the edge of the hone. The stabilizers should "NEVER" touch the hone.

I too bought a new Dovo, best quality 6/8.
It wouldn't hone up on the last 1/3 of the blade, closest to the heal. Looking it over closely, I noticed one side of the stabilizers was never ground. I thinned/ground it out with the dremmel, and sanded it smooth again. Hones up just fine, now.

I'm not trying to deter you away from working on it. I agree its just a learning tool, I did the same thing when I started restoring these things, and got the same flak.

Your doing what you should, to learn, I'm with ya. Keep buying the junk stuff for now, you'll see were only trying to get you over the hump of trash that your crawling over, later down the road.

As you see, my avatar is young Frankenstein
I bring um back to life, after death, sometimes.... from salvaged pieces. :rofl2:

Were just trying to help make things easier for you, cause we've already been there, done that. Just trying to remove the bend from the learning curve. Nobody's giving u the run around, just plain, in your face, truth.

Once swallowed, it makes it a lot less difficult down the road. Just saying.

We want you to succeed, just pointing out the obvious. Carry on, brother.! Git-R-Done

What they said. Plus, speaking for myself, I just don't want to see you get discouraged with one.that might be beyond what you already know how to correct. That's all. But, I took on projects that were beyond my skill set early on and I further ruined some blades that were already junk and it didn't stop me. People told me the same things and I didn't know why at the time.
If you want to work on it then do it. You can't hurt it really.

This is what Jerry is talking about:
Attachment 345548
Obviously the lines are not clean but they follow the curves he's referring to. You see how the shape of the blue line doesn't match the shape of the yellow line? The edge needs to be corrected and actually I disagree with him a little. In this pic it does look like that blade has a slight frown.


Now look at where the red lines are pointing.
Attachment 345549

This is what Mike is talking about. The stabilizer is hitting the stone in these places. It should never do that. It may have always had problems with the geometry.but it also has been honed to death. It can be corrected but you are going to have to regrind those curves and that plane that the farthest left line points to.

Also look at how the bevel width changes toward the toe. As you draw the razor along the stone the spine near the toe can spend more time on the stone than near the heal. That causes it to thin and throw your bevel angle off. You will need.to check the thickness of the spine and maybe correct it to get the right bevel angle: 17°-20° but preferably somewhere near the middle of that range but hopefully evenly along the length.
There are some good posts that show how to determine bevel angle.

Those are a.few things you will definitely need to fix and there may be more. You'll have to see how it plays out. Funny: a razor seems so simple but there is really quite a bit to their geometry and getting them to work correctly.

Also, you're starting to get a heal hook.
Attachment 345550

That heal might be the first thing you want to correct.
Attachment 345551

Again, the line is not clean, neat or pleasing to the eye but it needs to be worked back out of the way. Take a coin and lay it over the heal and then mark the blade with a sharpie. This will give you something to follow. Play around with the line until it looks right then sand that away on a belt sander or even a diamond plate. Just make sure to go lengthwise not across or you'll snap that heal off and then it is definitely headed to the junk drawer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by outback

Yes....that's why it won't hone. The leading edge of the razor has been honed away to the point that the stabilizers are now hitting the stone. That's bad.! It will keep the cutting edge off the hones until the stabilizer clears the edge of the hone. The stabilizers should "NEVER" touch the hone.

I too bought a new Dovo, best quality 6/8.
It wouldn't hone up on the last 1/3 of the blade, closest to the heal. Looking it over closely, I noticed one side of the stabilizers was never ground. I thinned/ground it out with the dremmel, and sanded it smooth again. Hones up just fine, now.

I'm not trying to deter you away from working on it. I agree its just a learning tool, I did the same thing when I started restoring these things, and got the same flak.

Your doing what you should, to learn, I'm with ya. Keep buying the junk stuff for now, you'll see were only trying to get you over the hump of trash that your crawling over, later down the road.

As you see, my avatar is young Frankenstein
I bring um back to life, after death, sometimes.... from salvaged pieces. :rofl2:

Were just trying to help make things easier for you, cause we've already been there, done that. Just trying to remove the bend from the learning curve. Nobody's giving u the run around, just plain, in your face, truth.

Once swallowed, it makes it a lot less difficult down the road. Just saying.

We want you to succeed, just pointing out the obvious. Carry on, brother.! Git-R-Done

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

What they said. Plus, speaking for myself, I just don't want to see you get discouraged with one.that might be beyond what you already know how to correct. That's all. But, I took on projects that were beyond my skill set early on and I further ruined some blades that were already junk and it didn't stop me. People told me the same things and I didn't know why at the time.
If you want to work on it then do it. You can't hurt it really.

This is what Jerry is talking about:

Obviously the lines are not clean but they follow the curves he's referring to. You see how the shape of the blue line doesn't match the shape of the yellow line? The edge needs to be corrected and actually I disagree with him a little. In this pic it does look like that blade has a slight frown.


Now look at where the red lines are pointing.


This is what Mike is talking about. The stabilizer is hitting the stone in these places. It should never do that. It may have always had problems with the geometry.but it also has been honed to death. It can be corrected but you are going to have to regrind those curves and that plane that the farthest left line points to.

Also look at how the bevel width changes toward the toe. As you draw the razor along the stone the spine near the toe can spend more time on the stone than near the heal. That causes it to thin and throw your bevel angle off. You will need.to check the thickness of the spine and maybe correct it to get the right bevel angle: 17°-20° but preferably somewhere near the middle of that range but hopefully evenly along the length.
There are some good posts that show how to determine bevel angle.

Those are a.few things you will definitely need to fix and there may be more. You'll have to see how it plays out. Funny: a razor seems so simple but there is really quite a bit to their geometry and getting them to work correctly.

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Oh okay, thanks for the pictures that makes more sense now. When he said the stabilizer was hitting the stone I thought he was referring to this part: Attachment 345555

This would explain my confusion at how this would be causing any issues. I did notice the huge un-evenness of the bevel across the length of the razor but had no particular idea of why that might be happening.

I'll go take a shot at grinding this right now, see if I can get some results. I brought a few other razors to work that are in much better shape to practice on, photos coming later.

I attempted some modifications. The first thing I tried to do was adjust the blade so that it was roughly smiling the same way as the spine. I did actually get pretty close although I definitely went too far on the toe. I did this mostly on a belt sander. I used a dremel and a coin to try to get the heel to look like a more normal shape, which seemed semi-successful. I tried to grind down the areas where the stabilizer was too thick, I had no idea what I was doing there and mostly just gouged the metal there. It does sit flatter on the hone now which is nice. After all that I spent a good 10 minutes with lots of pressure trying to coax an edge out of it on the 1k stone, seems like that was a failure as well, Near the toe and heel it was far too thick to sharpen that way, the middle of the blade did look almost as thin as my better razors, but nonetheless it still did not cut any hair on my arm after that.

Here is what it looks like:

Attachment 345559
Attachment 345560

I suspect that once you get a razor down to 1/2" wide like this, even without the list of other considerations, getting a nice edge on it is much more difficult. I don't know.

Despite the fact that I was essentially just torturing this razor for fun, if there's any useful observations that could be made here so I don't repeat these mistakes in a real scenario, please point them out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rickytimothy

Despite the fact that I was essentially just torturing this razor for fun, if there's any useful observations that could be made here so I don't repeat these mistakes in a real scenario, please point them out.

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I think you could have left the toe alone & there was no need to grind away on the tang & stabiiiser as that part of the razor shouldn't touch the stones anyway. Possibly you could have just curved in a bit deeper bringing the heel further forward.
You may have been able to correct that slight frown in the honing process. Don't think a belt sander was necessary.
Just accept that you won't get an edge all the way to the heel with something so worn..

If you start your sharpening at about 45º & gradually lower it you'll save some spine metal.

Yep. I wouldn't have taken away from the toe. Trying to keep the same width (as much as possible) across the entire blade is what is normal. When not much blade is left it's hard to correct the heal. A diamond file or plate would have been enough to correct any work you did. No need for power tools. Look up some of the work Outback has done. It's all done by hand.

Now find another junker to work on or try to get a bevel set. Nothing should keep you for setting the bevel except experience or bad steel. It takes a special ground razor to be less 3/8 or less so I won't be surprised if it will never shave.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by onimaru55

I think you could have left the toe alone & there was no need to grind away on the tang & stabiiiser as that part of the razor shouldn't touch the stones anyway. Possibly you could have just curved in a bit deeper bringing the heel further forward.
You may have been able to correct that slight frown in the honing process. Don't think a belt sander was necessary.
Just accept that you won't get an edge all the way to the heel with something so worn..

If you start your sharpening at about 45º & gradually lower it you'll save some spine metal.

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I have no idea how you would get that much of a frown out in the honing process.

This should be a good learning piece for you.
The stabilizer that you tried to reduce the thickness on. The sharp edge it had originally is a plunge line. Typically they are kept quite crisp. To keep them that way either your bit or your blade has to be in a fixed position. Tile it so you are push against the back edge of the plunge line then push down. The speed of the tool needs to be dead slow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rickytimothy

I have no idea how you would get that much of a frown out in the honing process.

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Really minor frown on that one. Easily fixed with a diamond plate.

https://shavelibrary.com/w/Honing_a_damaged_blade

I did recently post a repair similar to yours, in the "Butchered Blade" thread, in the workshop. Its in the last two pages. 468-469.

There's all kinds of junkers n clunkers that we've done in there. A look thru, might give ya some ideas and ways to maybe improve on them. On your next one.

I learned most of my skills from others here, as well from the library. From there I've learned to come up with some new ways of restoration that none others has tried. I'm always experimenting, looking for better, faster ways to restore by hand, with very limited use of power tools, of course. :angel: