Thread: Tapping pins

It's probably been covered before, but I just wanted to share my experience.

I got this beautiful Boker Tree Brand with the most gorgeous scales I have seen in a long time. That cool viney tree is imprinted the entire length of the scales, and it is that nice grained yellow celluloid.

The pivot was very loose, so...

I got out my little tiny anvil and my little tiny ball peen hammer and gave the pin a tap.

Brilliant!!!!l...the entire end of these scales shattered. Wow. $50.00 down the toilet, just like that.

Inside, the pin was bent to nearly a right angle. I guess it had been tapped before, huh???


That was the last time I will *ever* tap a pin to tighten the pivot.

I really feel for ya!

I've lost a few scales myself. I will loose them while going through the process of re-pinning. It's when I am in the process of removing the pins from the original set up that I'll usually snap the scales at the pivot area. I re-pin all my razors, except the Mastro Livi I just got, with an adjustable system. If I had just lost scales that were matching and really that neat, OMG, I would be shattered. Look for some really cool scales on Ebay; they're out there.

Someday, in my wildest dreams, I will own a mastro levi. Someday.

How hard did you hit? Someone at some point suggested hitting as hard as you could stand it if you hit your thumbnail.

That sounds about right to me with what I've done.

Originally Posted by toolarts

It's probably been covered before, but I just wanted to share my experience.

I got this beautiful Boker Tree Brand with the most gorgeous scales I have seen in a long time. That cool viney tree is imprinted the entire length of the scales, and it is that nice grained yellow celluloid.

The pivot was very loose, so...

I got out my little tiny anvil and my little tiny ball peen hammer and gave the pin a tap.

Brilliant!!!!l...the entire end of these scales shattered. Wow. $50.00 down the toilet, just like that.

Inside, the pin was bent to nearly a right angle. I guess it had been tapped before, huh???


That was the last time I will *ever* tap a pin to tighten the pivot.

The scales are not garbage yet, they can be reassembled with a liner.

I would NOT recommend hitting the pin as hard as you can stand hitting your thumb or some similar test. That's way too hard. Very light taps with a peen hammer work very well. Tap your index finger with moderate pressure on a tabletop. That's about as hard as you need to go on the razor pins.

I do about 10 light hammer taps on one side, flip it, and do ten on the other. Then I test. Not only for tightness, but also of course for tracking. If the blade tracks to one side, experiment with light taps (do 10 more on one side, but 15 or 20 on the other). Often you'll find that the blade will track more or will track less. You'll determine then which side you need to tap the pin on more times in order to try to center the blade.

Chris L

Good way to describe it! I pinned my first razor and tapped too hard and bent the pins a bit... I didnt think it would be so soft....

Pivot hole size is the one thing that I haven't seen motioned yet on this thread, reading Toolarts post and the description of the bend in the pin, I would guess that perhaps the pivot hole on this razor might be a wee bit oversize, or when the razor was assembled years ago that it had a slightly longer pin installed from the factory... Causing the bend in the first place.... The one problem is that, as Toolarts found out there is no way of knowing of the problem until either the razor is disassembled during a restore, or "disassembled" after he tried to tighten the pin....