Thread: tightening an old pivot pin

I've seen people mention tapping a pivot pin to tighten up a razor. I've got a very old, very heavy Sellers and Sons that I don't want to go whacking on without asking you guys first.

What I know about the razor, in case it helps:

• I believe the scales are wood. They don't feel especially brittle, but I'm not sure about that.

• The spacer is a soft metal - lead?

• The pivot pin seems to have a lighter-colored "collar" of some sort around it.

Some pics (click for large versions)


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Specifically, I'm wondering if those of you with more experience can tell by looking at this pin if tightening it is likely to work or not. I'd really hate to crack these scales - both because they may be old AND because having the razor rescaled could take months the way things ship around here.

Thanks for the help.

Peening and slightly trying to hammer the pin to tighten the pivot is in general not so much the trouble, but it seems I get a lot of messages from some that tried and for some reason cracked the scales as a genius.

Did they hammer to hard? overdo it? hammered the scales on a sensitive part? Was there a hidden under laying crack?

First you need to look and see if there's no pressure around the pivot. In general it's harder to crack wooden scales as to plastic ones. Light, but steady, short hammering is the key and knowing when enough is enough. A lighter weight hammer is always better. Worst case scenario you can send it out for someone else to do it for you. I'm sure you'll get some more pointers from others.

what do you mean by peening? if you aren't going to remove the pin, do you do something before hammer tapping it.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

what do you mean by peening? if you aren't going to remove the pin, do you do something before hammer tapping it.

Peening is just a word I use to describe the whole process so it can be unpinning or just hammering. You don't do anything special before hammering.
Just make sure to use a steady surface and not hammer like a madman either. And know when enough's enough by opening and closing the razor to feel the presssure around the pivot and checking after 5-10 hammer strokes. Brass in general will tap faster compared to silver nickel in my experience as it's somewhat softer.

thanks. I have a beautify C-MON HF spike 11/16s. It came very tight, but the scales were torqued out of shape such that the blade closed on top of the right side of the scales. I spent a lot of time manhanding the scales and loosening the pivot by manipulating the blade around the pin, so that it would be centered, but of course now it's so loose at the pivot that if I don't guide the blade, it might swing over and hit either side. I've been hoping to just tap tight the pivot that I deliberately loosened (and loosening that seemed to help straighten out the scales by the way, which I think were more wrenched/torqued out of shape than warped) so that it's tight and centerted, but I haven't gotten it to work yet.

Think I might have damaged the pin such that it won't tighten just by tapping it. It's a wonderful shaver so I'd like to tighten the pivot again.

That's a very delicate situation as most of the time trying to hammer the pin again will results in going back to the first issue you had.
If you notice that one scale is torqued and is not aligned with the second scale at the toe side (meaning one scale sticks out) you have a problem as the only way would be to unpin everything and start all over.
I also have a C-Mon HF, which is now part of my top rotation shavers, and those scales are indeed very fragile and prone to warping or torque issues. Mine has that issue too but it's very minor and not worth the touble as the blade does not hit the scales in any way and pins are tight. It's also a tad warped at the toe side.

nice to know it's a common problem.

other than the fact that I am unskilled at pinning, do you think there is risk in unpinning the HF and starting over? My nightmare would be that after I wrestled it back to darn close to untorqued and darn near lined up, I unpin the scales, and "boy-yoy-yoy-yoing" the scales spring out of shape and warp worse than ever, and now I not only have to repin but re-untorque it.

Is that silly? It feels all straightened out, and nicely lined up at the toe, so I think I could just unpin the pivot and repin it tighter.

If everything seems fine and your blade hangs loose between the scales any other isses with the scales would already have shown its ugly face.

Why don't you try to post some pics of the pivot side, toe side and overall scale lenght.

Sometimes working on a issue can be an improvement, sometimes it can make things worse and really not worth the trouble. You will also have to drill those holes bigger as they will not fit the 1/16 rods we use. Since I removed my blade for a complete clean up, that's what I ended up doing. Even the spacers will not fit so I had to use some bigger older vintage ones which I had laying around. Since I don't plan on parting with this razor anytime soon it really didn't matter for me and you really can't tell it was unpinned.