Two questions on restoring

Hi all. So, I'm still going a little crazy and have had ebay razors coming in a few times a week. I hit my first sweet spot in a straight shave last week and now I'm really hooked. This one day it all just clicked. :-)

Anyway, two questions.

1) When you have blades that are, what I think I'd call anodized... they're the smooth darker gray, not the shinny stainless steel look... how do you remove spots/rust. Do you just sand and not worry about the darker color or is there another way to do it to preserve the look?

2) What is the dark black/grey stain on some of the ebay blades I've gotten. It's not rough like rust and it's not doesn't come off easily. It's almost like the blade is stained in these spots. Is this just tarnish? Sanding seems to work but very, very slowly. Is that the only way to remove these spots? Sanding? Would MASS work better over a longer period of time? Am I even making sense?

Thanks for all the help!
Matt

I use mass to give a good cleaning before I sand anything. The spots you are talking about sound like water stains and the are terrible to get rid of. Depenfing how bad they are I sometimes just live with them.

I believe the "gray" color is just patina on old steel. It occurs from years of oxidation. Sanding will remove waterstains and also patina and you will be left with fresh steel. Just give it 50 years and it will give you the desired effect :w

What means "MASS"?

I think Doc meant MAAS, it's a metal polish that's quite popular.

I have restored around 30 old str8s and about 20 of them are in daily use. For me it works very well, but I know there may be members with a completely other pov ;)

My restoring procedure has the aime to get a good shavin str8 and goes as follows:

1) put the str8 in a plastic bag with strong desinfection. when hurting yourself while restoring an antiseptic str8 will be a slight advantage ;)

2) take a polishing cream (mass e.g.) an clean an polish the whole thing. this will remove superficial dust and stain.

3) pause an take a close look at the thing. Are there deep wholes in the blade? How does the edge look like?

4) in the worst case you' ll have to remove material in order to get a nice an clean blade. I am a follower of William "Bill" Ellis who for me is the absolute "master" of restauration. He is well known in this place here ;) . I use a "dremel" with accu. it has to run with very low speed so the metal is getting not to hot. sometimes I use sandpaper - first very rough, than finer and finer , at least I polish.

5) honing 3000 water stone, then 6000 waterstone, then leather with green color, then stropping ...

6) then an old razor may be reborn ... every razor feels different ... under dust and stain sometimes there will be a sleeping beauty ... giving you a marvelous shave :tu

good luck

arnd

You can't get rid of the rusting and pitting without getting rid of the greyish patina. Also you might go crazy just using Maas to get rid of the black stuff. Also, I bet there would be some type of pitting under the black spots.

• Your best bet would be to give it a mirror polish. Just removing the patina might not look as good as brand new from the factory.

This is the BEST thread I can remember reading on hand sanding.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/showt...t=hand+sanding

However, I'm of the opinion that you don't need to go past 600 grit if you use chromium oxide as a polishing paste before maas. I've tried going to 800 grit and 1000 grit and it went a little faster, but....
http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=18054