Getting the hang of blade restoration, any words of wisdom

After seven blades I believe I am finally getting the hang of blade restoration. I have been trying different techniques to sand and polish tarnished to outright rusted blades. I will tell you, this is harder than it looks. At the surface, as a newbie I think to myself “how hard can it be, I have sanded my share of car bodies for paint”. Boy was I wrong. This is tedious and time consuming work and I have a very healthy respect for those of you that have mastered this.

I have started using a 1/8 inch dowel rod cut one inch long as my sanding block. Originally I was simply wrapping the sandpaper around my finger and sanded away, usually with mixed and uneven results. With the dowel I can wrap my sandpaper around it and cover a good part of the blade with a single stroke. That evened out the pressure and gave me good positive contact with the steel.

Today I started on another blade that was in pretty bad shape. There was a small nick in the heel and the blade has substantial rust and pitting. I sanded out the nick with relative ease, it was a small nick but would have rendered the blade useless as a shaver unless removed. I removed the blade form the scales and sanded it out with some 250 grit sandpaper and got the edge leveled. Once scaled I will have to cut a new bevel (this blade was never honed) and get it shave ready.

After that I took to sanding, and sanding, and sanding. 5 hours later I have finished. I started with 250 grit paper, then 400, 1K, 1.5K and 2K wet paper. There are still a few tiny defects in the surface but you have to hold it at an angle to see them. I still need to buff, the below photo is only down to 2000 grit paper. As a contrast, there is a photo of the tang/pivot to show what the blade looked like when I started.

Any suggestions from the restoration masters out there? Does it sound like I am going down the correct path, any tips to make my life easier?

Once it get it finished and put into some custom scales I am going to list it on BST. I have 3 other clovers, these guys are wonderful shavers. I have a 4th for my collection in transit and my eye on another couple.

Sounds like you pretty much got it! Not really any shortcuts to cut out sanding time, just have to dig in and do it.

Dremel + flap wheels and/or radial bristle discs and/or Jason's drums is the only shortcut.

Did a little buffing this morning. It is not perfect but I think it will make someone a good looking shaver once I have it pinned into the scales.

Looks very nice. My only advice to anyone
is to stick it out on the lower grits. Once
you've had just about enough on one grit...
sand some more because it will probably
need it. Sometimes I complete a blade in
one day and other times it takes a few
days to finish. Depends on my mood. If
I don't feel like working on it I don't, otherwise
if I force my self to continue I'm going to
end up hating it and taking short cuts.

John

I'm about to start the same path for the first time. Is the 1" inch long 1/8 dia dowel too small to handle? I guess I can't visualize that, or I'm not reading that correctly? :confused:

When you sand, do you sand long ways or across the blade?


Richard

Quote:

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Originally Posted by riooso

When you sand, do you sand long ways or across the blade?


Richard

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Edge to spine across the blade. That way any remaining scratches mimic the original grinding of the razor.

Thanks for the reply!



R

Spine to edge. The dowel measurement was mistyped. It is not 1/8th, that would be pretty hard to hold onto. It is 3/8 inch. I wrap the paper around it, pinch it together at the top and then sand down and up from spine to edge. I try not to spend much time on the grind if not needed. I don’t want to turn a full hollow grind to a ¼ ground.