Thread: Cleaning "teeth" or serated part of tang

How to you guys clean the serated part that is common on the top and bottom of the tang? I normally polish my blades with a buffing wheel on a grinder, starting with black compound, then white compound and finally polishing to a high shine with blue compound. I am usually real happy with the outcome of the blades afterward. But the buffing wheels never seem to do a very good job on the jagged area on the top and bottom edges of the tang.

I have a wire wheel that I have been hesitant to use on any of the blades that I have rebuilt. But maybe that would be the best way to get that jagged area of the tang, I'm not sure.

How do you guys do it?

Hi - Welcome to this forum. The serrated areas your are referring to are called jimps. I use a wire wheel on a Dremel tool to clean these areas.

Regards - Walt

wire wheel with the dremel works well on cleaning the jimps.

If a dremel is not available, dental floss works well paired with some metal polish.If you have a vice, stick it in there, and go to town.

I have been wondering that too, but without power tools.
After reading this thread I remembered I saw a toothbrush looking thing that had brass bristles laying around.....

If you dont wish to use power tools, go to the hardware store and buy a brass toothbrush.

Quite the contrary, I much prefer power tools. I tend to use my bench grinder a lot more than my dremmel. But that's because the dremmel, being small, is just a little more tedious than a few quick passes under a big buffing wheel. But the dremmel IS a great idea for the "jimps". And thanks for informing me of the correct name for them. I had no idea.

I use a fiberglass retractable bristle pen. It works the best for cleaning jimps, but the downside does suck because the bristles are prone to breaking off and can stick in your fingertips.

I found a downside to using the brass wire brush wheel for the dremel: you'll plate your jimps with a coating of brass in fairly short order.

Chris L

I dont care for my DEs as much as my straights, so I pulled out the power tools. I used this thing to take off all the rust pretty quick. It is some sort of ScotchBrite wheel with 2 layers. I am not sure exactly what its called. It is rather soft and leaves a nice satin finish so you might want to tape up the surrounding areas. It will be much less aggressive than wire wheels and do a similar job with only a few more seconds of work.
Never used it on jimps but seems like it would work well.

http://ftpusers.coffeenet.org/~cato/razors/DSC00895.JPG

I let the tumbler deal with them :P

A stainless wire wheel on the dremel works great for me in the initial cleanup of a razor before I put it in the tumbler...JUST WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES!!!!!!!!!