Thread: Sanding a hammered shank?

I got a Robeson ShurEdge with a hammered shank off of eBay for cheap a while back. The etching is faded quite a bit so that you can only make out "that fits your face" and not the whole thing. There are some rust spots and staining, but all of that should come out with several hours of good hand sanding.

My question is do you hand sand a hammered shank just like the rest of the blade or is there another approach to take?

The scales looked cool but were warped pretty bad, so I took them off. I'll eventually need to buy a new set since I can't make my own yet.

It depends how much sanding you need to do. if you do too much you won't have a hammered shank anymore. Also you will have figure a way to do it to sand an uneven hammered surface. I would start with metal polish like mass or simichrome and see what happens. from there you can go to a cape Cod Polishing Cloth which works really well on a surface like that. Its not fast like a dremmel but will preserve most of the hammered surface.

I've already tried Maas and a Dremel with a felt wheel. It cleaned up most of the crap, but it's still got places on the shank and blade that will need some kind of sanding.

I just got back from Woodcraft with some of those contour pads. They look like they'll come in very handy, no pun intended. They also carried Norton sandpaper up to 2000 grit. So I stocked up on everything I'll need to get this razor looking perty.

Where would you get those Cape Cod Polishing cloths?

If I were going to try and save a hammered surface, I'd probably try small brushes in a dremel tool, not the radial ones but the inline type. Fiber bristles with Maas or perhaps something slightly more aggressive ( perhaps very fine lapping pastes) should let you keep the hammering intact to a point. Another possibility might be using those rubber abrasive points. They could be shaped on coarse sandpaper to a small ball point which could get into each hammer dimple but this work would be time consuming. Any sort of larger abrasive pad will simply remove the hammering all together.

Here's what I mean by the rubber points and here is a view of those end brushes which I might add are available in fiber, brass and steel bristles.

Regards

Christian

Be still my racing heart

I'd use a rougher polishing compound and rub it in with a q-tip to get those rough spots. Sand paper is going to flatten out the high spots and make a mess of the tang (in my opinion...). You want to attack the gunk as local as posable.

OK, well the sanding process is done. It took me about 3 hours of sanding. The etching on the blade is completely gone. I didn't know any way to save what was left of it and still get the rust off the blade. It's not up to par with some of the pros here, but it's light years better than what it was. I didn't sand the shank at all. Just tried more Maas and a Dremel with a felt wheel. There's still a lot of dark spots all over the shank. I'll think I'll try those end brushes next.

BTW, those contour pads from Woodcraft work great.

I bought a polishing set for my Dremel. It included a few of those end brushes Christian mentioned along with other items. I also bought brass and carbon steel end brushes separately. The brass wire brush did the best job. Cleaned most of the dark spots up pretty fast without damaging anything on the razor. There are still a few dark spots I can't get out, but I'm quite happy with how this razor is looking now.

Now to get scales for it...

Glad it worked out.

I was gonna say someone has mentioned sanding buffs in various grits for the dremmel, they might work if you can find them.

Yeah, sorry about that... I did intend to mention trying the metal brushes, I just tripped over that fiber brush photo first so I posted that. Glad it worked out for you. Those rubber points if shaped to fit the dimple with the spot in it, should do the trick if you want to make the effort.

Christian

Originally Posted by CRuzin

I bought a polishing set for my Dremel. It included a few of those end brushes Christian mentioned along with other items. I also bought brass and carbon steel end brushes separately. The brass wire brush did the best job. Cleaned most of the dark spots up pretty fast without damaging anything on the razor. There are still a few dark spots I can't get out, but I'm quite happy with how this razor is looking now.

Now to get scales for it...

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

Those rubber points if shaped to fit the dimple with the spot in it, should do the trick if you want to make the effort.

I'll give that a shot tonight. Thanks.