Gold Inlay

Is it possible to remove the gold inlay on a lets say a dovo singing blade?
I would like the blade to just be silver.

Polishing compound will remove the gold plating. Use a polishing wheel with a dremel but don't stay in one spot, especially at the edge or you may overheat it and ruin the hardening of the steel.

Also be very careful not to stray the wheel off the edge and make sure that the rotation is from spine to edge. If the rotation is the reverse and you stray off the blade on the edge you will almost certainly chip the blade. Ask RichZ and he'll tell you all about it.

Other than that it will just take a bit of time but polishing does remove the gold wash.

thanks Vlad!

Vlad is right on that. I got too close to the edge and before I knew it I had a half moon chip out of the blade. Luckily it was on the front of a rounded point so the razor is still usable. But it could have been a major disaster.:cry:

Typically the black )or white/silver) on most razors is done through electro-chemical etching with the gold being applied gold leaf. Basically that is micro think metalic gold bonded to the steel with "sizing" (glue). A fine abrasive and a littlw work and the gold is gone. The black is more resilient and even when gone a ghost shadow of it may still appear as the metal itself is chemically changed where the etching was.

Tony

On DOVO blades, the gold is aplyed over pattern which is first laser burned (small dot pits) with the desired shape. You can observe this on the Micarta No.105 and Hollow Ground, Ready to Use (DOVO special model) gold decorations. I believe Tony has the later for sale on e-bay. So, when you remove gold, you will be left with laser etched (burned) pattern instead of nice gold inlay...

Nenad

Thanks for the info Nenad. I am familiar with gold leaf on other things but did wonder how they preped the steel to make it stay. Over wood it is reasonably durable but on steel I did wonder why it didn't wash right off.

Tony

Here's some closeups on the Micarta, from nassrasur.com :

http://www.nassrasur.com/norbert/pic..._Aetzung_1.jpg

http://www.nassrasur.com/norbert/pic..._Aetzung_2.jpg

http://www.nassrasur.com/norbert/pic..._Aetzung_3.jpg

some great microscope pics of the edges there, too... :

http://www.nassrasur.com/norbert/norbert.html

have fun,
Nenad

very cool pictures..enjoyed, never seen it that close before. thanks

Interesting pix's. I also haven't seen it that close. Cool beans.:cool:

Those are pretty neat, Nenad. Thanks.

As for removing the gold, I suppose if you really wanted to, it's not that hard. Most people seem to say it's harder to keep the wash on than to take it off. I would imagine you could do it easily with a good polish.

I just like the look of a nice polished straight with nothing on the blade. I do not have the skill to do it myself or would attempt it myself, just wanted to know if it could be done. but i would not want to see a mark after or a anything ugly.