Thread: Cleaning bone and other materials

Gents,

I need to clean away some seriously vintage crud from the bone scales of the W&B I bought today (I bought my first straight razors today! See this thread!).

How should I go about gently cleaning the residue on the bone? And how about the celluloid on the other razor? What processes and products are best? Which should be avoided at all cost? And should I stick with cool/room temperature water?

Thanks for your time!

Soap and water can get you pretty far. Rubbing acohol is a little mor aggressive. I have thumb nails which I use to scrape because they're less aggressive than any metal scraper for the hard caked gunk.

X

You bustin' my hump again about the fingernails?

I'll give good 'ol soap and water a try. I just was worried about waterlogging/ruining the bone.

I don't know if you have access to one, but I use soap and water first, then (after they're dry), I take mine to a buffer, with a loosely stitched muslin wheel, and white compound. I've got about 13 razors now with horn scales, including one W&B exactly like yours, and that made them look like new (probably better, actually). Go veeeerrrry lightly, though. It even works on celluloid.

The scales on your W&B are green horn. Steel wool can get off the worst of crud without trashing horn scales. You can polish them back up with Flitz. For the inside if it's really tough, you can make a plastic scraper or you can use an emory board for fingernails or make your own out of a thin sliver of plastic with the sandpaper grit of your choice glued to it..

Great suggestions. Thanks, gents.

Originally Posted by Ben

You bustin' my hump again about the fingernails?

Nope he ain't. They're long enough to do some serious scraping. Don't mess with the X-dude

Long enough to cut off and use for razor scales?

Originally Posted by Ben

Long enough to cut off and use for razor scales?

They ARE a renewable resource, aren't they?

Indeed they are!

No kidding!