Thread: First attempt at cleaning up a blade. Advice needed.

I bought this Geneva Cutlery razor on eBay for less than £10 and it seems to be in pretty good condition. I've rubbed it with metal polish and it's cleaned off a lot of the muck, but there are still some marks on it, in particular near the toe of the spine. Do I need to start going at it with sandpaper? If so what grits will I need? I'm fairly confident I can turn this into a razor I will enjoy shaving with and will appreciate any and all advice that helps me get this razor into my rotation.

I'm at about the same place you are in terms of restoring a blade. So I'm not going to venture any advice. I'll leave that to the experts. I just wanted to point out, if you haven't seen it yet, a nice wiki on sanding a blade. I think that's where I'm headed with my restoration project.

Hand sanding a blade - Straight Razor Place Wiki
Kent

You're left with pitting. No polishing creme will remove this. Sanding is the way to go unless you have a access to some power tools.

The Wiki link posted by Kent should get you started. Off course if you want to restore the whole blade you'll have to remove the scales and peen those back after the job is done.

IME the trouble is that once you start with sandpaper you'll take away the corrosion but you will leave scratches. This is not a problem if either you don't mind scratches or if you are willing to spend a lot of time going through progressive grits to remove the scratches from the previous grit until you get to a satin finish.

If the blade is going to look 'right' then you'll have to do the whole blade, not just spot cleaning. Once you've spent hours sanding to the satin finish point if you have the tools, the know how and the desire you can go to a mirror polish.

I'm not knocking that but I have neither the know how, the patience or the desire and I prefer to take a bit of 600 grit of 000 wool and remove the dark stuff, polish with semichrome and leave the blade as is. YMMV.

You have great advice to get you started with the clean up.. So I will only add one thing

OMG those are pretty scales !!!!

Thanks for the tips!

I have looked at the wiki, but I wasn't sure what grit sandpaper to start with. I don't mind putting in the hours to move through progressively finer grits, however I'm not keen on removing the scales, as has been mentioned, they are VERY pretty and I'd be nervous about damaging them. If I do start with sandpaper, do I use it wet, or dry?

What is involved with Jimmy's method? I didn't see it in the wiki.

It wont get rid of pitting... But if you have a dremel, Emery Compound is good stuff

Originally Posted by dannywonderful

What is involved with Jimmy's method? I didn't see it in the wiki.

I don't really have a method that would recommend itself to the Wiki. I take a corner of wet/dry 400 or 600 grit and rub the black area until I'm satisfied. If I want I might go to 1k grit. A friend who used to be on the forums told me that dry works better but you'll go through way more paper. Loads up fast.

I have also taken 000 wool with a drop of Break Free and rubbed out some rust. Doesn't scratch as much but it is a lot slower.

The restoring that Gssixgun, Traveler, Maximilien, Philadelph and others do is phenomenal. It requires hours of hand work and mucho know how. My friend Chris "The Topher" told me that he might take 10 hours to hand sand a blade.

My method such as it is takes a few minutes but the results reflect that.

Before you go sanding, try another polish, I don't know what metal polish you used but some polishes (like Brasso) were not designed to polish hardned steel.

The only polish I have experience with is Simichrome, it is an aggressive metal polish and is somewhat gritty like toothpaste but will not scratch the blade.
It is available in small tube (like toothpaste) for under $10.
Use it with a piece of cloth, it will not remove the pits, but will clean the black out the pits, the blade will have an even tone.

Hope this helps.

I used Autosol, which is a lot like Maas. It took a lot of the crap off the blade, but some areas seem to have black " bubbles ", or even warts. It's just one corner really, but I suspect it will require sanding. I can't find a body shop near me that stocks the sandpaper in grits I need so it looks like it's off to eBay again.