Thread: Pics of My First Restore!

Here are some pics of the first razor I've ever restored..(hopefully the first of many)
This one started out as a "junker" I picked up locally for $20.00 to practice honing with. It had some really crappy plastic scales that looked like some kind of shop-class project. It also looked like someone had sanded it w/ 60 gr paper, maybe they were trying to collect to gold-dust from the etching.....
It seemed to be in great shape otherwise; no hone wear and very little patina and the edge seemed perfect, if a little dull. The tang is stamped "Bromeso" and "Solingen".
I polished the blade up all the way to 2000gr paper and then polished it w/ a dremel. It came out almost perfect!

I bought a chunk of ebony locally and set to it this weekend. I had to design the scale shape myself, but am really pleased with the way they turned out. I sanded it all the way up to 2000 gr and then buffed it with some crocus cloth. The wood just about glows.
My peening (first ever attempt) is a little sketchy and the blade sits a little lower closed than I'd intended but all in all I call it a success.
Thanks for the great info available here! The wiki has proven to be an incredible source of great info!
Now it needs to be sent off to be honed properly as I no longer consider it a "junker"!
Cheers
-Chris

Hey, looks awesome!

Very nice Chris. I recently received some very nice ebony and am looking forward to rescaling some big Sheffield wedges. Did I understand that you didn't use any finish, just sanding and polishing?

Regards - Walt

Hi Walt, and thanks.
The finish is a bit of a story.... I originally planed to use CA, but all i had was the thin grocery store stuff (not appropriate for this, I've learned) I seemed to keep sanding each layer off prepping it for the next. After about 6 coats i finally twigged to what was going on and just polished it up. The inside of the scales has a few coats of CA, but the outside doesn't (anymore). I guess I figured that I could just polish 'em up later with Tung oil or Renasaince wax to fully protect them.

I am open to suggestions though.

BTW, and I could be wrong, but I may have read something somewhere sometime recently that said Ebony doesn't require any finish. Does anyone know if this is true?

PS If anyone has any good tips or knows a webpage about applying CA would you be good enough to steer me in the right direction?
Thanks
-Chris

Great job!

Really classy and understated, great work!

yup i agree, very nice work, congrats on your first restore! and i am liking ebony more and mroe the more i see it.... i think i need some ebony scales! how does the weight of ebony compare to celluloid, much heavier or not such a noticable difference? b

Lovely work - well done!

Regards,
Neil

WOW! IF you said you had been doing restorations for a while, I would say that looked great. But heck, your first restoration? thats really awesome.

Great work.

Originally Posted by wdwrx

Hi Walt, and thanks.
The finish is a bit of a story.... I originally planed to use CA, but all i had was the thin grocery store stuff (not appropriate for this, I've learned) I seemed to keep sanding each layer off prepping it for the next.

great looking razor.
For the CA you do 4 layers at a time then sand and go another 4, total of 12 layers. The regular grocery store stuff works just fine this way.

Dude, nice restore! What did you do with the Dremel buffer wheels? Any compound treatments/abrasives?