Thread: Are any of these blades restorable?

I'm very, very new to straight razors, and I managed to find one old American razor in very good shape as a starter. But of course, when I saw several razors for cheap this weekend, I couldn't avoid picking them up. The good news is I got them for very little, so if I've struck out, no worries!

I picked up a Special FW Engels, and it looks like a winner to me--there is just one worrisome little spot on the blade by the point, but I've never done a restore, so I have no idea if it's a problem. I think that one may be my first attempt at cleaning up an old blade.

The other two are Wade and Butcher blades. I have no idea if they're savable, and I'd hate to waste hours finding out they're not. I would appreciate opinions from those who've done this before. The smaller blade looks like a chore to me.

Do I have any winners? I just want a good shaver or two--nothing has to be gleaming and perfect. (Which is good, considering the bolt that "Carlo" replaced a pin with on the Wade and Butcher wedge after scratching his name on the blade!)

And also--I've looked for resources on using my Dremel for this, but not found out a lot. Can anyone point me toward info?

thanks!

All appear to be in decent shape and should clean up and shave nicely (after honing, of course). One of the W&B looks to be in need of a repinning ... hopefully the prior owner didn't drill out the pivot hole to put a bolt through it. A little bit of sanding should take the name that's been scratched on the blades out.

You did well!

cheers

rick

I'll answer you with a question. Does a bear sh!t in the woods?


Absolutely!

Well, that's good news, then! The smaller W&B edge looks to have a bit of a wave, but I'll just give them all a go and see what happens. I think, too a re-scale is in order on the wedge--the blade doesn't go all the way into it because the scales seem a little too short.

Is a dremel too much for these old blades, or can you safely sand and polish them with one?

A dremel will work, but it needs to be used very, very carefully (if you run a search you will find a few horror stories of blades being destroyed by mechanical means (rotary tools and bench grinder / polisher). A few hours of hand sanding will generally do the trick to spruce them up (many hours hand sanding with progressive grit will get you a near mirror finish).

If the Engels were mine - given what I can tell of the pictures - I would clean what ever gunk is on it and hand polish the blade, hone it and be shaving with it by morning.

+1 What he said.

Originally Posted by rsrick

A dremel will work, but it needs to be used very, very carefully (if you run a search you will find a few horror stories of blades being destroyed by mechanical means (rotary tools and bench grinder / polisher). A few hours of hand sanding will generally do the trick to spruce them up (many hours hand sanding with progressive grit will get you a near mirror finish).

If the Engels were mine - given what I can tell of the pictures - I would clean what ever gunk is on it and hand polish the blade, hone it and be shaving with it by morning.

That Engels is in good shape. Before you do anything drastic, just give it an hours worth of polishing with some MAAS. It does not look like it needs anything else.

Thanks--I'll give that a go on the Engels. I have some metal polish called Noxon I can try. I'm hoping it will polish the bolsters (right word?) too, without doing anything untoward to the scales.

Yes, they are all restorable given the right amount of time and love.

The Engels seems to be the easiest and you could really get those scales looking like new too. Use maas for the bolsters and inlays. Use some platic polish for the scales. Even maas can work but not as good as platic polish. Another option is to use some high grit wet sandpaper or micro mesh.

Keep us updated and post some pics of your progress.