Thread: Rust Patches - Do these look really bad??

I'm looking at purchasing this seven day set of Joseph Rodgers straights - dated 1909, and to me it looks like super deal, the blades look nice a broad and generally seem unused given the age. I'm told the scales are ivory too.

The thing is, I'm not sure how deep these patches of rust go, either they are simple surface patches, or there's some nasty pitting going on here, I just don't have a great knowledge of rust to assess whether this is an issue or not, so some expert eyes will be much appreciated

Also whats the best way to get these gleaming again? As I'm looking to get them to use as daily shavers..

That's pitting alright, and some spots are bad. I don't have x-ray vision, but they will require some serious sanding to be brought back to "normal". Don't expect to simply rub some maas on there and get a perfect mirror polish.

Thanks for the insight Dan.
I guess I'm interested to know would you purchase these given what you see, and do you think the labour involved in sorting these out would be worth it? I quite like JR blades, and the edges on these look pretty fine, also the hone-wear looks really minimal. But is pitting a real deal-breaker?

thanks again.

+1 on Dan's assessment of the rust, as to value that is for you to decide, insight wise you have 7 full restores to do if you want them to match....You cant just sand out the bad spots and not do the entire razor or the shiny spots will stand out worse then the rust... Soooooooooo it kinda depends on what price you're getting the set for......
Somewhere in this forum are 2 restores that I did on rusted blades one was a Red Imp the other was a Otto Deutsch both had worse rust than that and I took progressive pics of the restores so it will give you a look at the work involved.....

Hey yeah, took a look at the Otto Deutsch restore you did - great job btw, yeah that blade looked way worse off than these I've posted, and well, you proved quite clearly that these small patches I've got here can surely be worked out - so to me, based on what I'm getting the set for I figure some restoration work will be worth the investment, also remember those two with the dark spots are the worst of the lot, the other razors are all pretty clean, so I think I'll go for it.

Thanks guys for the help, I'm really digging SRP