Thread: Petina vs. restoration

For my own personal collection I always try to keep the razors as close to original as possible in regards to the scales but I always restore and polish up the blades. For me my razors need to be as close to perfect. Showroom condition so to speak. They are my babies and I want them to look healthy :-)

Originally Posted by LarryAndro

When I see an old razor that is polished and shiny, I don't like it. It doesn't feel old, and it makes we wonder what flaws were hidden by aggressive polishing.

(I ran into a razor that had a very nice looking blade, but didn't hone as expected. On close examination with a microscope, it was pitted with rust. This was not readily apparent to my eye.)

I seen a razor like that on ebay recently. It looked too shiny and just didn't look right for such an old razor.

Richard

Originally Posted by Maximilian

For my own personal collection I always try to keep the razors as close to original as possible in regards to the scales but I always restore and polish up the blades. For me my razors need to be as close to perfect. Showroom condition so to speak. They are my babies and I want them to look healthy :-)

So what came first the chicken or the egg...???

I have the same thing in my collection everything is clean shiny and as close to factory as possible.. But maybe this is why Max and I are Restorers in the first place, I know that is a fact in my case, I restored my own razors first then caught the Restoration bug...

I'm sorry, but not one new razor ever came with Patina, Rust or Pitting, straight out of the package, and myself I use my razors to shave, therefore I want clean, bright, shiny, steel on my face.... The good thing is they are your razors, so guess what, you get to decide what, if any, restoration is going to happen....

I agree with Glen. Razors out of the box are shiny and clean, so I want all of mine to be like that..! I want them to look as close to new as possible in a nutshell, and I'd rather have them shiny than covered in patina.

I dont mind a small amount of it, but I wouldnt want the razor to look like I just dug it up in the back yard is all!

Let's take the Japanese katana as an example. In the market, a rusty sword will command less than a professionally polished sword. I see razors in the same way. We've probably lost millions of razors to decay over the last 100 years and who knows how the next 100 will fare for the razors tucked away in someone's garage. For all we know, those lovingly restored razors will be the only ones to carry on the legacy of razors from the last century. Realistically, how many razors are around from 200 years ago?

Well... after reading these posts and taking a look at sixgun's stuff... I remembered WHY I started collecting these razors.

To bring out the peice of art that they are.

I am not going to have any setups like sixgun, but I will go invest in a good gringer and various buffer grades (impressive stuff btw the wasy sixgun)

So in one of your examples you had an W&B American, a great razor, and a razor that should make it into a collection.

From the after pics, it looks like you buffed off the acid washed detail. What our your and the opinions of others about keeping the original 'artwork' on a razor?

Originally Posted by cjglancy

From the after pics, it looks like you buffed off the acid washed detail. What our your and the opinions of others about keeping the original 'artwork' on a razor?

Try like crazy to keep it, I used to have a sig line at one time that said it perfectly though

"The pitting on a razor will, by Murphies Law always be just a touch deeper than the etching"

Personally, I'd rather have the petina than an old razor polished to mirror.

Even if there is pitting (not along the edge of course) I'd rather keep it than polish it off to a mirror surface.