Thread: Please advise on steps to restore this razor.

No it does not shave armhairs, although I wouldn't profess to be an expert at performing an armhair shaving test hehe. I tried flat against my arm and at 30 degrees, flat it just slides over. At 30 degrees it scrapes dry skin but doesn't cut any hairs.

Is this yer first Straight razor or do you have another "Shave Ready" one to compare it to????

Is this an E-bay buy???

Please don't post the name of the vendor here if not... But you can pm me.. (as a MOD)

I have another razor. There's no comparison. It's only a Gold Dollar 208, but it does really well. I've been shaving with it for a month now. I'd be scared to test shaving arm hairs with it, whereas no fear with this wade and butcher hehe.

I wouldn't sand it at all. If you want to just shine it up a bit you could use some semichrome polish that will leave most of the patina on, depending on how hard you buff it, and give it a nice little protective coating. Great find!

Hone that sucker and shave away! Looks great as is IMHO.

Thanks to all those who responded with advice. I'm going to read a whole bunch this weekend and try my luck at honing it.

I agree. There is not much there to restore. If you want to make it bright and shiny like new, abrasives and griding wheels would do that, but that is a damn pretty razor as is. I agree that Maas would be amongst the least offensive materials if you wanted to keep it original, although I would apply even that very, very gently without too much pressure, so you don't end up doing more than you intend to. Honing might be a challenge and you might want to leave that to an expert on this one. Personally, I love W&Bs and will only take abrasives to them when they would otherwise just sit as rusted blades.

Well good news.

I re-watched all the World of Straight Razor Shaving section on honing, read through the wiki, watched youtube videos of Lynn demonstrating the circle technique and got comfortable with a plan to hone the razor and try to get it working right.

I have a Norton 4k/8k. I started out with two sets of 20 circles on each side on the 4k because of the hone wear on the blade, and to reset the bevel as best I could without a 1k stone. Then I did the pyramid technique, but starting at 10 instead of 15.

I then did 20 laps on the chromium oxide on the material side of my 3" red latigo from SRD, and 60 on the leather.

After all that I got the blade to shave as good if not better than my cheap Gold Dollar 208, so in my opinion that's a great success.

No matter what now I've got my value out of the razor as I am now much more comfortable with the honing process. It's really not that hard if you focus and take your time.

Thanks again for all the advice guys.

Well, honing your first razor certainly deserves a WOOT! I've got a Wostenholm that I've honed up and it's better than any of my new razors by a long shot and it has some nice patina too....embrace the patina! These old beat up razors have lots of stories to tell. Heck, it's likely to have traveled more in its life than you ever will.

I just picked up an old W&B wedge that looked horrible. Not a nice patina but covered with irregular black staining. Just a mess. But hey $13 so I figured I'd practice on it. An hour of elbow grease and Maas then honed following a pyramid starting at 15 strokes, using what you have (Norton 4000/8000) polished on a Chinese 12K, stropped, and it shaves great. So hone it and shave.

Sometimes the decision of what to do with a particular razor is very difficult. It is especially hard if you are oriented, like I am, towards conservation. When you get a razor in the mail and you see it hurting, you just want to fix it - to restore it to it's former glory. I guess from experience you learn how to distinguish a razor that is hurting from a razor that is simply old. Active rust and corrosion to me is a no brainer. You have to resolve that problem, or that razor is just going to be destroyed. Very occasionally, I get a razor that has just such a beautiful patina and/or a natural mirror that I just want to sit and stare at it for hours. Fortuately, there are enough razors out there for both the restorer and the preservationist. I hope that folks out there though, will give just a bit of extra thought to modifying something you see very infrequently - especially something with a nice early etching.