5 Attachment(s)
Vintage Restore - Fritz Bracht Dovo #24
This is more a blade restore than anything else, I did clean up the scales and brass, but honestly it was rather easy...
This first pics show what I snagged off E-bay, minus the discoloration and the bad hone wear... I took that off and smoothed it out on the Buffers...
The true issue with this blade was the really bad frown that can be seen here...
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I actually measured this razor out before I started, a couple of things become interesting... This razor started out marked as a 6/8, I am really starting to think this means after it has been honed on many of these, as most of the NOS stuff I find has just a touch extra... This could also I guess be because of different measuring systems, or just manufacturing guidelines...
So the wide toe and heel were at 6/8+ and the frown was at 6/8 even...
Now the next step was to Bread-knife it, yeah yeah I know what half of you are going to say, and my answer is, "I like straight, even, tiny, bevels"...
I used the back of and old Norton lapping stone and did 90% of it in 3 minutes I timed myself doing this also... I took another 2 minutes on a DMT 325 to get it dead even... so we have 5 whole minutes and a blade that is at 6/8 and straight, but also dull as hell...
I then put 3 layers of tape on the spine, Holding the blade like you would a knife with the spine about 2 widths above the DMT plate, I started cutting a pre-bevel using heavy pressure, within a few minutes I could feel an edge starting. I use 1 drop of dish soap on the DMT when doing this stuff...
I dropped to the taped spine and started doing circles using heavy pressure.. burned through the 3rd layer of tape, pulled it, more circles 20 per side down and back on the DMT 325, burned through the 2nd layer of tape... Now I am getting a rather ragged edge forming, but an edge...
Very very very lightly I draw the edge across my Translucent Arkansas, at a very slight angle from dead straight down, it takes away the ragged feeling in 3 "Jointing passes"
Back to the DMT 325 with one layer of tape, I do 20 circles medium pressure per side, check the edge do 20 circles light pressure per side and stop...
We are here now with a rough bevel cut
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I switch to my "Problem Blade Bevel Setter" a Norton 1k using 1 layer of tape... 20 medium pressure circles 20 light pressure circles
Change tape, 5 heel forward laps 1 X stroke, 5 heel forward 1 X stroke very light pressure...
Spin stone 5 X strokes 1 heel forward, 5 X strokes 1 heel forward...
Pop arm hair test, stop...
Time involved 31 minutes...
Results: Dead Even bevel set...